


Crash Course

by bitch_i_migth_be



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Danny Phantom, Young Justice - All Media Types
Genre: Amity Park Citizens are strange, BAMF Danny, BAMF Jazz, Because he is still in negation and everyone else compromised behind his back, Bruce & Vlad are The only Two Billionaires I can stan, But That he is OP doesn’t mean he knows how to use this shit properly, Crack, Crack Treated Seriously, Cross Posted on Tumblr & Fanfiction, Crown Prince Danny, Danny is the little brother with the thousand back ups, Danny's Lair is whatever City Jazz is in, F/F, F/M, Future Ghost King Danny, Gen, Gothamites are a fucking riot, I Don't Even Know, Is that a protective Vlad Masters I see in the distance?, Jazz is the girl with the plan, Let Danny Curse 2K20, M/M, Or at least he is trying, Overpowered Danny Fenton, Sibling Bonding, Sibling Squabbling, Tagging characters as they appear - Freeform, Unlike SOME People, Vlad is getting redeemed on this, You bet ur ass, heteronormativity? Never heard of it, sometimes, the Fenton's A+ Parenting
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-29
Updated: 2020-10-27
Packaged: 2021-02-23 00:09:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 23,926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23369257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bitch_i_migth_be/pseuds/bitch_i_migth_be
Summary: Jazz was trying to make him go into cardiac arrest - considering his halfa status that would be quite the accomplishment -But there was no other explanation to his sister's stubbornness, and if Danny knew her at all there was just no talking her down from interning at goddamn Arkham.
Relationships: Bruce Wayne/Selina Kyle, Danny Fenton & Jazz Fenton, Danny Fenton & Jazz Fenton & Vlad Masters, Danny Fenton/Damian Wayne, Dick Grayson/Koriand'r, Jazz Fenton/Jason Todd, Kitty/Ember McLain, Pamela Isley/Harleen Quinzel
Comments: 411
Kudos: 1137





	1. Life choices

**Author's Note:**

> Square up bitches

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Approximate Ages I'm working with here:
> 
> 15 Damian   
> 16 Danny   
> 18 Jazz  
> 19 Tim, Cass & Steph  
> 21 Jason  
> 26 Dick  
> 29 Barbara  
> 42 Bruce  
> 43 Vlad (More or less?? Whatever, the man is in his forties)
> 
> There will be more characters on this. But you are free to imagine their ages to your heart's content. This is just for my personal reference, and though some of you might like to have a base? Take it or leave it. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

He swore his sister was trying to make him go into cardiac arrest -And considering his halfa status that was quite the accomplishment-.

But there was no other explanation to his sister stubbornness, and if he knew her at all there was just no talking her down from interning at goddam Arkham.

Their parents were no help at all. Well, they had been a little helpful at first, of course, what parent isn't concerned about their precious princess going to a city full of raging lunatics? And, ok, maybe she had gotten a full-ride scholarship from Gotham University, but she could easily get in any of the other alpha nerd colleges she had applied to when they were in elementary school, yes, elementary school- and he wasn’t surprised to find out they were still keeping tabs on his sister since then, the stalkers, but whatever, still better than the one in Loony Town.

So, with mom and dad at his back, Danny thought at the time that they could convince his sister from accepting, he should have known better ‘cause all it took was a mention of all the new, different and most likely quirky ghosts that probably haunted the other city and all the research she could do on them because, oh? didn’t she mention? The G.U. was letting her make her paper on ghost psychology, and wasn’t that just neat?

After that mom and dad -the traitors- were over the moon with all the possible research that their princess could do with the resources provided by a university, let alone one as prestigious as G.U., they had not, after all, forgotten the good chunk of investigation financed by the University of Wisconsin that led them to the creation of the ghost portal, and even that was after fighting tooth and nail for validation of their thesis. After all the ghost-related incidents of the last years, the world was finally acknowledging the validity of ghost research and these people were offering Jazz a great opportunity.

Dad and mom where static for at least one of their children was getting into a good college or, well, that is what it felt like ‘cause-

Like, they had not said anything but it was pretty clear they had given up on him getting into college. Any college.

..He wasn’t going to lie, i-it hurt a little bit.

Just enough, really...

Not that they didn’t love him or anything but, I mean it’s not like they knew the reasons behind his fucked up grades, the constant breaking of the curfew, his reluctance to get near them as much as he used to because he feared triggering another of his parent’s weapons again and- well, you get the idea.

So the interactions parents-son were a little rusty and declining because they knew he could raise his grades, after all, he had been a good student before the portal opened and the ghost started treating Amity like a playground, but they didn’t know why he wasn’t trying anymore, and his reluctance to spill the tea was not helping.

They probably thought he didn’t care.

But he did care, he was anxious all the goddamn time because of it, there was no time to get his school work done and still hunt down all the pesky bitches invading the town, what was he supposed to do? ignore the ghosts? What was he going to tell his sister and his friends??

Like ‘Sorry guys, I know I let the town go to the dogs, but look a B+!!’ Yeah, no. Not gonna happen.

But that his grades and chance of being an astronaut had been murdered in the ghost portal -not even touching the issue with his weird as shit contaminated ectoplasmic blood that wouldn’t pass the health check-ups, really he would have a better chance on steroids but whatever- didn’t mean that his sister’s chances were. You would think he would be resentful, but really, he loved his sister too fucking much, they had been through some shit together and he knew that if there was someone to be resentful to was his godawful luck.

And the Observants, fuck those bitches.

So yes, he wanted Jazz to be safe out of this weird haunted town, but just the thought of her sister getting this scholarship, to make a paper, on ghosts, in an asylum, on fucking Gotham, all by herself, and no. Fuck NO. That shit was the exact opposite of what he wanted!!

Sadly, by this point in time Jazz already had sneakily planned and executed the first steps to get the ball rolling and shut down any argument he had to throw at her, so-

Whatever.

That’s what she wanted? fine. But if she thought that he was going to let her take the bull by the horns on her own she was fucking wrong. The Fenton siblings had been ride or die since the Chicken Salad Incident of 2006 and if his sister was going to throw down in Loony Capital then so help him god he was going to be right behind her.

also, he was not staying alone with their parents, that was just asking for trouble.

As for dealing with the ghosts, well, there was always a first time for everything and he supposed there was nothing a few treats and cashing in some favors couldn’t fix. Maybe a pair of memos here or there, the diplomacy lessons that the Observants had been trying to shove down his throat -may the higher lords know why- had to come in handy sometimes for fuck sakes.

And thus the _Fenton Crash Course for Suicide Missions_ -shut up Jazz, it is suicide- was born, because he was left with no other option more than prepare, and boy was he going to prepare.


	2. A sister's musings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author liberties were taken by someone who doesn't own shit at the moment.
> 
> And they will continue to be taken.
> 
> Enjoy.

Jazzmine Coraline Fenton had not planned any of this for her future.

In fact, no matter how many people thought otherwise, she didn't have anything planned for her future. 

Not anything concrete anyway.

Even since she was little she had been good at a great many things and excelled in a few more, much to her parent's delight and the chagrin of the parents of the other children in her class. But there had never been something she particularly loved, nothing that could convince her of which way to focus herself, so she decided to just- spread and conquer, in those years. 

Looking back on it now, she supposed the main reason she held herself to such high standards was so she could get some proper attention from her parents, who, unless there was a need for basic interaction or an academic event, tended to focus on their career. 

Not to say that they didn’t care for her, they did, but they couldn’t be called role model parents by any means. They could get so encased on their research that sometimes it was safer for everyone involved to just let them to it and enjoy the little ghost-free interactions that could be encountered every now and then.

When Danny had grown up enough to be an acceptable company (which was still pretty little considering the standards of human interactions the senior Fentons could provide to other people, let alone a child. At that point Jazz was more than ready to take anything she could get) there was not as much reason to keep striving for their parent's attention, but the habit had been already ingrained, and good notes were not a bad thing to have, so there was not a motive to stop.

Danny was as cute as a button (still was, but he got all flustered and retreated to safer pastures whenever she brought it up, so she refrained. No way she was reprieving herself from her brother), and she was ecstatic to have someone to play with that wouldn’t, couldn’t really, run away screaming from the crazy-psycho-wannabe ghost hunters. 

What with them sharing parents and all. 

It would be a good empathy exercise if anything else. 

So Jazz made sure to teach Danny her ways. They took care of each other and then promptly proceeded to have their very own improvised survival training in their own home. Sadly, even with all of this, she worried it might not be enough.

In other words, the main reason she had to get into psychology? Her family. Specifically her brother. 

It was clear to her, and to anyone else if they had bothered to look into it, that their parent's main concern was not their family dynamic, and as long as the food was not openly engaging in hostilities against the younger ones, they refrained to paying more than the basic of attention to their doings. Which was a good thing for when the kids wanted to play around, but not so much for when they really needed parent supervision. 

Jazz had taken it upon herself to learn more about what made people tick. Taken it upon herself to learn how to take her family from barely functional to something a little less distressing to witness. And she would succeed even if she had to glue their parents and them together to make it work.

For a while, it looked like it was going to stick. 

And then the Ghost Portal had backfired on all of them.

Their parents had been over the moon that their apparent failure had been a ruse, a ghost trying to mess with their work, they said. In either case, it had only caused them to become even more invested in the ghost research, and now that they had legitimate proof of the existence of ghosts and their realm it would be even harder to talk them down once they got going. 

Unlike her progenitors, she was more concerned with the impact the frequent ghost attacks that followed the accident would have, and the obvious repercussions there would be against her family if anyone put two and two together and realized her parent's shenanigans were at fault of all the public destruction via ghost. 

And Danny-

For the first time since she could remember Danny was pushing her away. 

It was telling, than even neck deep in ghost attacks the thing that could hurt her the most was his reticence to talk to her. Nonetheless, her brother needed her and she would always rise to the occasion no matter how stubborn he could get about it. 

It had taken a while for her to understand, but eventually, she did. 

He had died. 

Her parents had, however unknowingly, put the final nail in the coffin.

Literally.

Jazz had been devastated. But then, she was not the one who died, was she? Or did he?

She stuck by her brother. She listened. She observed. And by whatever miracle, she confirmed that her brother, while wary, was still her brother. He was not a vague impression, not a faded memory, not unfeeling, not uncaring. 

Au contraire, her little brother was, if the ghost fights were anything to go by, caring way too much to be healthy. 

It was, to some point, comprehensible. Danny thought the activation of the portal was on him. He felt compelled to help however he could. 

Which was unfair because honestly, their parents were the ones that fucked up. But alas, the responsibility they held for the attacks didn't mean they were capacitated to deal with the consequences.

So she continued to stick by her brother. Talked him down when it was obvious he would keep going his merry stubborn way even if it half killed him again. And then brainstormed together how to make the best out of this god-awful situation.

Jazz was not a fighter, so she had to resign herself to back up, running interference, and dealing with collateral damage. It was not as much as her brother, but in needed to get done. 

And then, in one of the many attacks to Amity Park she had been able to talk down a small group of ghosts. 

She prevented them from attacking, all thanks to her knowledge of psychology. It was not her fighting prowess that ‘defeated’ them, it was her words. 

She had been useful.

So, maybe, she didn't need to be an excellent fighter to help her brother out. Maybe- maybe she just needed to understand better. 

Because, really, weren’t most the ghost just people? Dead people, yes. But still people. Persons whose feelings had amplified at the moment of crossing over. And that just translated to tons of unfinished business. And what was the point of a psychologist if not help people? She could help others in her own way. 

She wanted to. 

That was a thing that apparently she shared with her little brother

Danny took it upon himself to protect the humans. 

But who was helping the ghost? 

Not all the ghosts were evil. If her brother’s tales about the Ghost Zone and its size where anything to go by, with the Ghost Portal they could have completely razed over the town if they wanted to. It didn’t add up. Some of the ghosts would even just come to the living world to mess around, not hurt, just play.

She had seen her brother herding the tiniest-non-humanoid ones that would sometimes flock in their neighborhood around as if they were little sheep. It was kinda cute, actually. 

So maybe, if they learn what made them tick in an emotional sense, they could talk it out with the ghost. Maybe not all of them, but most. And wouldn't that be a great help to relieve Danny’s load? 

When she brought it up to the others- well. Sam and Tucker had just stared at her. 

“What are you talking about?” They asked.

She had tried to explain, and they just looked at her like she had a screw loose. She was flabbergasted. They had spent way more time than her in the presence of ghosts. How had they not noticed?

The two teens had exchanged glances, gotten up, said their goodbyes, and made their way home. And that was it, an easy dismiss. She could only gape after them, and turn to her brother.

He was already looking at her. 

He stared at her too, but he gave her a melancholic smile

“They don’t want to understand.” Was all he said. 

That was enough to comprehend. 

And that was the thing everything reduced to, wasn’t it

You could not see what you did not want to acknowledge. Not even if it was slapping you right in the face. Their parents were proof of that. 

Because the truth was that no matter how many people bitched about it her little brother was a hero. 

Phantom was a hero. 

And at the end of the day, Sam and Tucker were just civilians. 

They didn’t know how bad it could get.

They didn’t know the grimmer parts. They didn’t think about them, they didn’t have to, because her brother was shielding them too. 

That all the ghostly abilities her brother had acquired were not just “cool ghost powers”, that no matter how many times Sam talked about the responsibility she was not the one losing sleep over it, that no matter how Tucker sometimes wished he was ‘special’ too, there was always a price to pay. And Danny’s had come with interest. 

They didn’t want to acknowledge that Danny had died. 

Jazz was the one waking up to her brother screams, the one constantly smuggling medical equipment into the house, the one fretting about whether her brother occasional lack of pulse in his sleep was a bad thing this time, the one to share sleepless nights along with her brother just talking trivialities so they could pretend for a moment. 

Danny had always been _hers_ like Jazz had always been _his._

If their constant quarrels and natural stubbornness could not tear them apart in the middle of their parent's madhouse but made them stronger, then a triviality as whether one of them was dead or not was not going to tear them apart. 

And maybe someday she would have to join him on the other side. But that was cannon fodder for the future.

For now, she would only concentrate on ways to help. The faster she learned the better. 

And if She and Danny had flourished and learned to cope in the madhouse their parents had built. 

What better option to have an intensive course than another madhouse, right?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I like to believe that clothes were not the highest priorities in the Fenton household because Jack and Maddie can survive off jumpsuits alone and probably tried to convert their children too. 
> 
> So Jazz and Danny would get their hands in any scrap of normal clothing they could, and by this point, Danny doesn't even care if he has to use Jazz's hello kitty sweater because that is better than his dad's face. 
> 
> He was already bullied anyway, might as well bite the fucking bullets.


	3. Ready?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I appreciate the comments, guys.  
> :33
> 
> Let me know what u think.

Danny might not be the smartest person out there but he sure was crafty as fuck. 

He had needed to be even before the ghost entered the picture. Then, after the portal was up and running the habit of thinking on his feet and the fine art of rolling with the punches had been added to his skill set. 

So, Danny knew from experience that no matter how good you could get at improvisation, it was always better to prepare beforehand if you had the opportunity. Because if you let something to chance, it would probably come back later to fuck you over. Or some annoying ghost would get in the way out of goddamn nowhere. He could deal with them, but it was just a waste of everyone's time. Better get going before someone interrupted him. 

Normally one small thing or another would backfire anyway because of his salted luck, but he preferred not to poke sleeping dragons when he could. 

Taking into account all of that, he had decided the first order of business in the Fenton Crash Curse for Suicide Missions: Start packing all the shit they would need to take with them. 

_Because It’s never too early to pack for the road to hell._

Especially if you are already in a hell all of your own. 

-.-.-.-

“What do you mean you are coming with me?” Jazz murmured from the threshold of Danny's room, eyes wide open, as she watched her little brother try to pack all types of random things into suitcases. 

Since she had announced at the Fenton Family Dinner her plans of going to Gotham University and accepting an internship at Arkham, Danny had been behaving like he was possessed, which considering the portal in their basement was not that far fetched; he had started carrying around a book-like-journal and would not stop murmuring about survival-of-the-fittest. Jazz was not going to lie, she appreciated the concern but that part was a little bit concerning. Not the survival in general, they had been playing that game since forever in this house, but they had never really needed to write anything down. 

Until now, apparently.

It was kind of weird witnessing all this. Weird as in she wasn’t used to him fusing so _much_ over her. A normal amount, yes. But most of the time it was the other way around, she was the big sister after all. Also, with the ghosts around and him going all hero on their behinds her brother was in dire need of all the support she could dispatch. So, yes, she wasn’t expecting this reaction at all, and she was even less prepared for her brother declaring his intentions of joining her in Gotham. 

She hadn’t asked how he was planning on dealing with the ghost problem yet, but considering he was already packing when she, **they** now, weren't leaving until the end of the summer Jazz thought her brother must have had something in mind already. 

She didn’t even know how they could need some of the things he was putting in there but it appeared like Danny was on a roll and she wasn’t going to be the one stopping such, umh, productivity.

“I said what I said.” 

Jazz frowned lightly.

“Are mom and dad aware-?” 

“I told them I was going to be your assistant with the research; mostly the field part because I don’t think they trust me with the equipment after what happened the last time,” Danny answered while still hunting down for more essential items to put in bags, those things were handy as fuck. “also, get a job or something.”

“A job?” jazz raised an eyebrow and leaned against the doorframe.

“It’s on the list,” Danny waved his journal/diary/thing in the air. Huh, so they _were_ survival tips. “considering you are the only one with a scholarship and I´m not going to school anyway it seemed appropriate.”

“excuse me? you are not going to what?” 

“May as well-” Seeing his sister’s expression he quickly backtracked, “but I mean, if you are _really_ that opposed there is always online classes.”

Danny tried to smile in her sister's direction, but his nervousness made it come out more like a grimace. He kept trying. Jazz kept staring at him. Danny kept grimacing back.

Then she smiled back. A proper, full toothed smile. _Oh fuuck._

“I think I can do you one better” And with that, she turned on her heel and left. 

Danny blinked two times. one after the other. 

“D-Do me one bet-? Jazz, wait!” 

But it was already too late, his sister had another ball to start rolling.

  
  


-.-.-.-

Her brother was not stupid.

If her brother choice to appease her by taking online classes had been born merely of a strategic need, and hence the best course of action to take, Jazz wouldn’t have rebuked at all, there were, after all, some pretty good online options that her brother could take. But alas, that was not the real motive of his decision. 

It pained her and enraged her to see people belittle her little brother without even knowing him. See them think they had any right to decide whether he was worth something.

And it nagged at her than even knowing the basics of what was wrong with her brother’s low grades, she couldn’t help him more than she currently did. Not really. Unless she wanted him to end up in the hands of the G.I.W.

Fat chance of that.

But if there was a thing a Fenton was not it was a settler. And like hell she was going to let these people bring her brother down.

The first order of business would be to scout out the G.S.U. properly, some phone calls could prove useful, after all those who search shall find.

  
  


-.-.-.-

When Jazz had retreated to her quarters earlier Dany had been left on his own with an uneasy feeling nagging at his gut. It felt a bit like foreboding. 

Like most things in life that inconvenienced him when it came to family issues he decided to ignore it until it came back to bite him, so he continued with his preparations and eventually took a seat among all the clutter that had become his room. After that, he didn’t have to wait long.

His sister had come back strolling decisively into the room, only pausing briefly to warily give the evil eye to the sheer number of things spread all over the room that appeared to have multiplied since she left the place. 

She stopped right in front of her brother’s seated form and trusted her phone into the smallest Fenton's unsuspecting hands.

“Look! There is still time to apply to a full-ride scholarship at Gotham Academy” Danny blinked up at her without a word, and at his sister’s insistence looked down at the phone to start reading, then he did a double-take and started re-reading.

Jazz had got to be kidding him.

“You want me to apply to some posh elite school?” He looked up incredulously at the redhead “Elite, Jazz? Me? With my grades and the amount of time I would get to study for an entrance exam I would be failing this just by applying.” grumbled the boy.

“That’s the best part.” Said the girl smiling like the Cheshire cat. “This particular exam is practical in engineering”

Danny froze. His eyes shot back to the phone. 

“Practical you say?” 

“Yes, lately there have been more scholarships granted for demonstrating a great grasp in the practical portions. Gotham is a little, umh, hard to handle, I suppose, and there have been situations in which people with the knowledge to accomplish great things have been turned down because of a lack of proper school background or support. So they decided to start implementing this.” She explained while her little brother continued scanning the document up and down.

Eventually, Danny shook himself back together. 

“Ok, look, let’s say I had a shot at this.”

“Which you do-”

“Which I might.” The younger interrupted her, “This still requires to prepare at least three proposals for the faculty’s designated table of judges to evaluate and grade to get the green card, and this is like two weeks -two weeks!- from now, it doesn’t even specify what they are gonna have the applicants doing for the final test. How the fuck am I-?!” 

The redhead decided to cut in before he could drive himself into a frenzy. 

"Well if you are that sure about joining me then you won't have a problem acing this, will you?" she smirked, then it softened into something more fond. “I know you can do this Danny, and so do you. And if you are that worried about the time, I can help you, we can start tag teaming together for ways to deal with the ghost from the get-go. It may not be permanent, but it will have to do.”

Her brother started biting his own lower lip and still looked somewhat unsure, so she decided to use the final big gun.

“Did I mention that Gotham Academy is right across the road from Arkham?”

Danny’s shoulder slumped.

“Ughh, fine!”

Jazz beamed down at him.

“I will leave you to it then!”

-.-.-.-

“Also, those things are not going to fit anywhere if you don’t organize them.” 

“Oh, _ye of little faith._ ”

-.-.-.-

So. Jazz did have a good reason to believe her brother could get the G.A. scholarship.

The Fenton thermos technology was not only useful for capturing ghosts but could also store other things. That’s to say, more tangible things. 

And her brother was the one who made it happen.

Danny has been tinkering with his parent's things a lot more than some people would be comfortable with. The truth is, some of the things Jack and Maddie have invented _could_ be fucking useful for everyday life if you took out most of the ghost shit or rearranged them a bit, it could have gained them a pretty penny, but like we all know the Fentons are not interested in anything if it's not ectoplasmic. 

Danny, on the other hand? 

As much as he ends up believing all the bullshit others say about his sister being the only genius child of the family, he had never been afraid of dismantling and mounting up again some of his parents' equipment. For him, it was not a question of whether or not he was qualified to do so, after growing up watching his parents tinker random machines all over the house he had inevitably started to pick up their ways almost as if via osmosis. 

His parents, of course, had never fully noticed the fluffy-sweater clad toddler waddling after them from time to time watching them work, at first this happened when Jazz was otherwise occupied in extracurricular activities and couldn’t keep the boy successfully distracted somewhere else. 

If at the time, Jazz had realized what was going on, she may have panicked and stopped her sweetly feral summer child of a brother from getting anywhere near their parents in the middle of a craze. As it was, she had not noticed in those first years, and by the time it had come to her attention even she had to concede that if her little brother had managed his recon missions without no one the wiser - Her brother was sneaky like that -, then he deserved the benefit of the doubt. 

And, had that not been enough to convince the big sister, that had been the moment the sudden realization than her brother, unlike her, was more of a hands-on learner hit her full force, which would have been enough to make her relent. Learning was always good in her books.

Later, Danny would find most of the classes being imparted in Casper high boring as fuck. Not necessarily for the subject, but the way they were imparted. The youngest Fenton needed a good explanation along with a hands-on approach applied to something he found interesting to fully commit to something. At school, the most he could get were the theory and the occasional practical classes. 

If the classes had been related to something interesting, say, rockets, stars, maybe NASA, it would have been easy to pay his full, unconditional attention to the teachers.

But not one of the teachers had bothered to try and link the lessons to the interest of the alumni, not surprising, considering public schools stuck to basics, had a timeline to complete and the classroom never seemed to learn things at the same rhythm so concessions had to be met.

It was still boring as fuck. But if he wanted to someday make it into NASA he would have to suck it up and force himself to survive with relatively good notes this torment. 

Then the ghost fights had entered the picture and his motive to keep up the grades had all but vanished, and the little time left behind to work with was not enough to make, at least, an average grade. He didn’t have enough reasons to strive for more.

For this though? A new chance far from the ghost _and_ he could keep protecting her sister? 

He had the brains. He had the passion. And a good damn motive to drive him forward.

Once he was done, the luggage - and Loony town - wouldn’t even know what hit it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also, the thing about Jack & Maddie not trusting Danny with the equipment was one of Danno’s secret tries at messing around with the things. Needless to say, that one time didn’t stay a secret. 
> 
> Oh well, it was not like he asked for permission in the first place.
> 
> -.-.-.-
> 
> “fluffy-sweater clad toddler”  
> Not gonna lie, I made myself crave some cuddles from toddler danno, so. fucking. cute.  
> There he goeees just waddling like a little duckling asdfghjkl
> 
> -.-.-.-
> 
> If someone here is a fan of the Gotham Academy Comic I greatly regret -not really- to inform you I’m only taking hostage the place for my evil fanfic purposes. I don’t know if there are going to be references, but that particular comic is not the focus of this story, SO. You have been forewarned.


	4. A Busy Queen Bee

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was going to wait for a little while to post this, but I realized the one chapter I wanted to post was getting WAY bigger than the previous one and it’s been like, almost a month, so. Yeah. Let’s start with this first.
> 
> Love your comments :33

Danny was quickly writing down on his journal every single little thing that could be helpful to deal more efficiently with his workload, had been rather busy lately, and normally he would just wing it and be done with it, but this time there were some things he had to take into consideration before he started to poke bears with sticks. 

One of the most important?

When you are dealing with ghosts, you have to take into account that they have a thing called obsession. 

It's their drive. The reason behind their actions and continual existence upon this world, and as such, a good way to guess what makes them tick.

Danny liked to pretend he was not a slave of a fucking obsession, but considering he was still fighting the ghosts, with no payment to speak of, and after the massive amount of times someone had used his face to scrub the streets-

The fake it ‘till you make it ideology only carried you so far in life.

His friends called it a hero-type obsession. 

Danny didn’t think that fit quite right. 

When he couldn't turn a blind eye on one of his, particularly reckless, actions he preferred to describe it as a protection streak.

Obsessions were ‘born’ the moment of one’s death, after all. 

And there had been nothing heroic in the way he had died. 

He had been scared shitless.

The moment it had clicked in his head that he would most definitely die right there, all the reasons why he didn't want to die yet flashed by his mind, all those places left to visit, his dreams of going to space, going out with his friends, his family- _My god,_ _Jazz_...

He would leave his sister behind. 

He was leaving her alone in this godforsaken house with their parents. 

Even after all the years the Fenton siblings spent calling living in the Fenton household ‘survival’ they had only been playing around. It was supposed to be just a joke. Something to lighten and make fun of their weird family dynamic. 

It wasn’t supposed to escalate like this. 

And now- n-now their parents had demonstrated that they were apparently more than capable of killing off — if accidentally — one of their children, what the fuck would prevent them from murdering the other one? 

Who was going to protect his sister?

The fear for his well being had rapidly transformed into dread for his sister's future. A tremendous and sudden rush of protectiveness had inundated his being. 

And that was it for him.

The next time he had recovered some semblance of coherence he had awakened as a fully minted halfa and there was no going back. 

Some months later, after learning more about his situation and what it meant, he had been capable of identifying what was the _drive_ behind his ghost half. Jazz had been the catalyst, but apparently the sheer feeling of protectiveness had been what his soul had latched onto. So while his sister was a big priority, he recognized that he still felt somewhat inclined to protect in general. 

He still refused to call it an obsession, though. 

So Protection Urges it was.

Apart from keeping a constant watch on their house —for both their sake’s, truly—, when the ghosts started running wild all over the place his new ghost instincts had come to the conclusion that _a safe town meant a safe sister_ — and a happy sister. Jazz would blow a fuse worrying about getting lynched by the town when they realized the older Fentons were at fault of the destruction of their homes. And he would worry about his sister getting skewered. An intervention was in order —, so, most of the time this protection was reserved for the humans, considering the weak things tended to get trapped in the crossfire between the ghosts and their obsession or even other ghosts.

There were also moments when humans would turn against other humans. But in a place like Amity — where the citizens felt a certain level of kinship against the ghostly invaders and tended to stick together — those tended to be scarce and far between. 

The occasions where his protection streak would show up in favor of ghosts weren’t as numerous, but they existed. They tended to be either when the G.I.W. got their imbecility involved, his parents were hell-bent on getting subjects for dissection or when other fucking ghosts insisted on being fucking assholes.

After all the time he spent dealing with ghosts it was undeniable there were good ghosts out there, and no matter the reason, when he helped these ghosts out most of them tended to be openly grateful. Some promised him their allegiance, others gave him their respect, and a good bunch of them would find subtle ways to stay under his protection. 

Once the almost disaster that had been Pariah Dark was over, some of the ghosts had started to actively _request_ his protection. 

Some of the most aggressive ghosts had started to back down, shit, even Walker was not bitching at him as much as he used to these days. He would think he was going soft, but he still looked at him like something the dog had dragged in — which, ok, that was true sometimes because Wulf, or even Cujo, but there was no need to be rude —, Danny didn’t really mind, Walker wasn’t his favorite person either. 

So things were a little better for him when he visited the Ghost Zone, and he could make things somewhat better for the weaker ghosts that relied on him for protection. As far as Danny was concerned he was doing fine in his protection duties. Fast forward a pair of months and the Ghost Writer was _kind_ enough to inform him that while he was doing an excellent job with the fighting aspect, he sucked in all the others.

Apparently, when a ghost asked for the protection of another ghost they were requesting a lot more than just a ‘fight for me’. — And how the fuck was he supposed to even know that? — This, of course, also meant that they were willing to offer a lot more in exchange. But Danny wasn’t as focused on what he could get in return as in the fact that he was apparently lacking on his role as protector. 

Not on his goddamn watch.

Damn his fucking urges.

Later on, with more time and experience to sort through this wreck waiting to happen and after he finally got the chance to met more of the sovereigns of the Infinity Realms and personally witness their interactions with their people, he would start to understand what exactly this new role he had stumbled upon meant. 

For the moment the only thing he deemed as the first priority was supplying the ghosts under his care with a safe space to exist. 

According to the Ghost Writer, giving them a safe space would normally translate into welcoming them into his lair, because the weaker ghosts that normally requested protection didn't have the proper energy levels to make one of their own.

The problem with _that_ was that he _didn’t_ _have a lair_. 

...Not necessarily.

GW hypothesized that, as he was so attached to his hometown and spend the most part of his time in there, it was likely that his ghost half recognized the entirety of Amity Park as his lair, and as such his instincts hadn’t seen the construction of one for his own use in the Zone as necessary. Or something along those lines. 

That had been a bump on the road for his plans. 

Nonetheless, a Fenton does not know when to fucking stop, so he kept at it. 

When he nagged clockwork about it the older — or younger, whatever he was at the time — ghost had said that winning a fight against a ghost king meant inheriting their lair by right of conquest. So technically speaking, Danny did have a lair now, no matter how creepy the thing was.

That was all good and dandy but didn’t quite resolve the main problem.

Because now the problem was that Pariah’s goddamned keep — now Phantom’s —, was ‘guarding’ one sleeping murderous king, and two fucking powerful artifacts. And opening the doors to what amounted to a small army of random ghosts while those things were there was not a good idea. 

But, seeing as Danny was not about to expose ghosts or humans to each other, there was no way he was letting his ‘people’ into Amity, so the castle it was.

Considering the significance the crown, ring, and even fucking Pariah held for the zone, the Observants would have to get involved for decision making, because of course, they had to shove their nonexistent noses on everything. 

As anyone would have predicted, it was a goddamn pain to reach some kind of agreement when such uptight guys were involved. The halfa acknowledged that finding a place to these things was important but after two hours of debating back and forth over it, the situation was getting ridiculous. 

Danny, being pretty annoyed already, had asked if they could just melt the damn things and be done with it. 

The Observants nearly had a coronary. 

Clockwork would have succeeded in looking chastising if he hadn't been so busy trying to hide the smirk blooming in his face from witnessing the eyeballs’ ruffled distress.

They explained to him exactly why doing something like that was completely foolish, Phantom retorted that leaving _two_ ancient artifacts of immeasurable power, _and_ a psychotic slumbering ex-king in a creepy castle guarded by fear factor alone was fucking foolish,

The Observants countered saying that if the _new high king_ would just fucking accept his position and wear them then they wouldn't have to worry about the artifacts. Phantom disagreed in principle because the _new high king_ would have to be as imbecile as the last one to let himself get possessed by a fucking ring. 

The halfa dutifully ignored most of the implications thrown in that particular conversation.

Happiness belongs to the ignorant.

In the end, they had all acquiesced 

A good thing, because Danny had been more than prepared to throw the tantrum of the century if any of them tried to get that goddamned cursed ring anywhere near his fingers, and there was no fucking way he was going to parade around wearing a fucking crown on fire — or otherwise—, he had an ice core for ancients' sakes. 

In the middle of the ghost-catfight, Danny had stated that he would only agree to use the damn artifacts as long as they found a way to get rid of the goddamn curse of the ring and make the gaudy-crown less of a fire hazard.

The Observant sniffed pompously, saying that the notion of them not knowing how to do such a simple thing was ridiculous, Danny's eye twitched as he sneered, because ‘ _why the fuck haven’t you done it already then?’_

The Observants shifted nervously. Danny sneered harder. Clockwork stopped trying to pretend he was not enjoying himself. 

One of the Observants finally disclosed that the issue was not the knowledge but the power needed to pull off such a thing. With newer things, transferring powers from a thing to another was relatively easy. With millennia-old artifacts with such amount of power inside, though? Near impossible. Not even taking into account that the artifacts Danny wanted to ‘mess with’ were — however cursed — an ancient heritage of the Infinity Realms.

“Then we ask for help.” Phantom said curtly, crossing his arms over his chest. 

This declaration resulted in a row of rapid blinking among the Observants. It was fucking weird to watch. 

“Ask who for help, exactly?” Came the uneasy reply.

“Isn’t it obvious?” he drawled, pushing his hand through his already messy white hair and massaging his aching temple while he was at it. 

“I think what Daniel is trying to say is,” Intervened ClockWork after letting Phantom loose on the Observants as long as he could get away with. The boy was a real wonder. “If we need power and permission to ‘ _mess with the ancient heritage_ ’ then the better option would be to consult with the Kings and Queens of the Infinity Realms. Wouldn’t you agree?” the ghost of time finished sending a playful little smile to the ruffled Observants. 

At the end of the day, all this chit chat resulted in the official formation of the High Council of the Infinity Realms. 

For Danny, the best thing about this Council was that most of them, like him, had a bone to pick with the Observants. 

Which didn’t mean that they agreed with him on everything he put forward, but it still makes him quite satisfied, all things considered. 

Once established the first order of business had been, of course, dealing with the artifacts and Pariah. 

Phantom suggested from the get-go stashing pariah into a more discreet, less flashy location than his previous castle, and transferring the powers of the ring and crown into new non-cursed-or-flaming-and-better-named jewelry. 

These things had been a trademark of the ruthlessness of Pariah's reign, after all. 

Taking into account that all of the ghosts sovereigns had either been present for Pariah's carnage or were more than aware of the repercussions it caused, it was not much of a surprise when it was an almost unanimous vote in favor of the notion. It would have to be discussed further to decide on the precise details, but for the most part that was the general sentiment. 

The Observants had seethed for a while, but they couldn’t do more than resign themselves after the majority of the votes cast were in favor of a complete change. 

They had still insisted on keeping a goddamn crown as mandatory, and he could have kept going with his bitching but Jazz had been trying to teach him how to pick his battles, and this one was not worth more of a sore throat.

All of this hassle because he wanted to give some homeless ghosts safe heaven into his previously non-existent lair. 

Once done, with the artifacts and Pariah taken out of the keep, he realized some redecoration was in order before anyone lived in this place. He thought about asking ClockWork but decided to let him deal with the Council Shenanigans and went to bother the Ghost Writer instead. 

The dude sure had some strong opinions on color schemes and furniture. 

Danny shook himself out of his daydreaming, he had gotten carried away. 

He put his pen down, taking advantage of the little break in writing to stretch his cramped limbs and back like a cat before looking over his chicken scrawl spread all over the journal’s pages. 

If he dealt his cards well a single chat with the High Council and a visit to the castle would be more than enough to start the preparations. 

Danny's eyes zeroed in the last column of names he had written on the page. 

That only left the more- mmh, _particular_ cases. 

He let his chin rest on the palm of his hand, releasing a low hum while a little smirk slowly made itself comfy on his features.

Now, for the _fun_ part.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You might be wondering, “Did she just made Jazz the root of Danny’s obsession?” And the answer is yes. Yes, I did.  
> -.-.-.-
> 
> Frostbite's name in the Latin American dub is “Congelación” (which means 'freezing', thanks Nykoryto, forgot to point that out) and I don’t know how to fucking deal with that. It does not sound anywhere as cool as the original :’v 
> 
> Maybe it’s because I’m not used to hearing “congelación” applied to something as awesome as a goddamn ghost yeti. 
> 
> Or maybe not. 
> 
> Who knows.  
> -.-.-.-
> 
> I swear I’m trying to get these two to Gotham, but It feels like I’m dragging Danny there kicking and screaming. Which is- appropriate, I suppose.  
> -.-.-.-
> 
> There would be more details of the High Council integrants later(I think?) and the dynamic I’m going to put here, not like you can’t guess some of them already *wink wink nudge nudge*


	5. Priorities

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some of you *coming here for the fights, angst and The Drama™ that a DP & DC crossover inevitably involves*: "Hey-"
> 
> Me *Trying to write fluffy shit to liberate and soothe my deranged soul from this mortal prison*: "S'up?"
> 
> -.-.-.-
> 
> This is so long compared to the other chapters. Whhy is this so loooong. UGH- It's almost double the length of the first four chapters together? I thought it was less? This would have been bigger if I hadn't posted chapter 4 first? What is happening

Phantom was currently drifting on the Ghost zone trying to hunt down his next unsuspecting victim among the ghosts.

_‘Oh, how the turn tables.’ the halfa chuckled._

Jazz had kept her word and after pulling an all-nighter they had come up with some _interesting_ options. 

Now he just needed to pull them off. 

The sound of growling at his back made him freeze on his tracks. He turned around to look at the source of the sound. 

“Oh,” Well, this certainly had not been on the plans. To stumble upon such a _mighty beast_ this early on _._ He smiled. “Hi, Cujo!”

The happy barking that followed the greeting was rather endearing, normally whenever he crossed paths with the pup he would spare some time to play with him and teach him some tricks. After some months of the pup following him around and of the halfa trying to deny to anyone who would listen, _especially Val_ , that the dog was not really his, Danny finally gave up and got him a new collar. 

The little guy was quite spoiled nowadays.

Sadly, right now he was on a timeline.

“Sorry, bud. No playtime today, I'm on a rather tight schedule.” Phantom cooed softly, reaching down to briefly scratch behind the pup’s ears. 

Cujo sat on his hind legs, paws in the air and tail wagging, effectively cutting off his path. 

Not like he couldn’t try to fly around, mind you, but with a dog that could go gigamax on your ass, it was better to just talk your way out. 

Just when Danny was about to open his mouth the pup upgraded to excited wiggling on the non-existent floor of the zone.

The halfa sighed to himself. Fond smile growing without his explicit permission. 

“Cujo-” he tried, just to be interrupted again. _“_ And there goes the whining _, Oh. My. God.”_

The boy covered his face with his hands, not daring to look until the sounds stopped completely. After a moment, he finally took a peek from between his fingers. 

Sad, puppy dog eyes were looking up at him, small little whine making a comeback.

Fucking shit.

He was going soft. 

  
  


-.-.-.-

  
  


“Match head.” 

The sound of the nickname momentarily dragged Ember’s full attention from the tuning of her guitar to the new arrival. 

“Baby Pop.” She took notice of the green puppy posing as a hat on the white-haired boy's head and snorted, eyes going back to the guitar. “ _Blessed the eyes._ You going Cruella on us now or what?” 

“Please,” The boy jested. “Like we need a remasterized skulker around here.”

“At least the woman did it for fashion.” She hummed. “You would make a horrid carpet, you are too fucking skinny.” 

“Excuse you, bitch.” Phantom shot back, irritation clear on his voice. Ember rejoiced on it. 

She faked a gasp,“ Are you saying you want Skulky to make you into a rug, baby pop? Scandalous!” 

“T-that's not-!” the halfa spluttered before Ember cut him off. 

“What do you want, cupcake? It’s not like you to venture so far into the Zone willingly unless you are looking for blood.” She questioned, carefully putting her guitar back in the case. 

The boy huffed.

“Whatever, Ashley,” he grumbled under his breath. “I think it’s time we revisited the terms of our agreement ” The boy sat by her side nonchalantly, not noticing — or outright ignoring — the sudden rise in temperature as the girl’s blue hair flared violently, a deep frown marring her face. 

Cujo did notice. But the little doggo was more distracted with the movement of the pretty light-emitting hair, and the fluffiness of the hair on his current method of transportation to register the imminent danger to his fur. 

Priorities.

“Revisit? You want to fucking revisit?” She growled. “I will tell you what you can fucking revisit-!”

The halfa just laughed at her reaction. Ember’s hair doubled in length. The laughter died off.

Her hand was getting dangerously close to her guitar.

Danny swallowed hard, deciding to just get on with it before Ember tried to use the instrument as a wanna-be war hammer again.

“It’s quite the contrary, my dear flaming hot,” he rushed to appease her “I want to expand on it,” he said, throwing in a sickeningly sweet smile for good measure.

He hoped it was enough to regain her attention in a more positive light. He didn’t want to explain to Jazz why his ghost form’s eyebrows were singed off. Again. He didn’t have time for more lectures. Thank you.

Luckily, If the hair-inferno reducing to a cheerfully blazing bonfire and the growing smirk taking over ember’s face was any indication he had succeeded. Cujo whined for the loss. Danny wanted to squeal for the win.

He did not. But it was a very close thing.

“ _Oh ho_ , now we are _talking,_ baby pop.”

  
  


-.-.-.-

  
  


The window of opportunity to pull this off was very small. He had to take into account the amount of time that had passed since the last fight, the reason for the aforementioned fight, and how much of an emotional investment the objective really held for it to be a proper detonator. 

This operation required surgical precision, which meant a lot of preparation. And research. 

It was a good thing it happened so often. 

“I will be direct with you, sister,” Phantom spilled, sprawling himself on the free seat on Kitty’s right side. “your bitch boyfriend doesn’t know the jackpot he hit with you and that just ain’t gonna fly.” 

knowing where Kitty would end up after a fight with Johnny was not a problem. tracking down which bar she was going to be crashing for the aftermath was the real problem. 

Danny hadn't even known there were bars in this place.

In the last months of his treaty with one Ember Mclain, he had learned plenty of- _interesting_ facts about the Zone that he would prefer to forget. Not that he really had an option, Jazz had taught him early on that information on the enemy — and sometimes on friends —was a valuable asset to ensure victory. 

So he would play dumb about knowing these things. But he would not forget about them.

Couldn’t afford to forget them.

If the Ghost Writer pulled another surprise quiz on him and the answers were less than perfect the man would riot. 

The halfa stretched out a hand to take a menu and leaned his elbows against the bar-top. Cujo chose that moment to leave his position on the teen's head to sit next to his forearm so he could peer at the menu too. 

He skipped the drinks section and went straight to the food. There was no way he was getting any alcohol. 

Don’t get him wrong. They would serve him whatever the fuck he wanted if he asked for it on the zone, but the teen had tasted it before and hated it _with a passion_ . Fuck the peer pressure. Never again. Good for when you are sad? _Bitch, just get ice cream._ Maybe he should have asked Ember for Kitty’s favorite flavor and save himself the hassle. Oh well.

Too late now.

Danny chose his order but decided to risk a look at the drinks for non-alcoholic options while he waited for Cujo to paw at whatever he wanted.

Kitty, who had been spluttering and getting progressively redder since he made his entrance, was about to smack him upside the head because even if it was true the brat shouldn’t just go saying it like it was any of his goddamn business. They were in the middle of a crowded bar, these people didn’t need any more confirmation for her relationship problems. Couldn’t she keep some dignity? 

Before her hand could connect though, a pair of arms surrounded her, bringing her firmly into a backward hug against a warm chest. 

A very _familiar_ warm chest. 

Startled, she looked up to stare into fiery green eyes.

“Cool it kitten,” Ember purred, clad in a leather jacket that was, most likely, scammed off some unfortunate soul. Still. She looked damn good. Kitty got so tongue-tied she couldn't manage to even begin to stutter a response, let alone a protest. Danny took advantage of Ember’s intervention to finally place his first order. “Babycakes is right.” Ember continued, effectively cutting off all the air from kitty’s sails once and for all, because really, Ember was her best friend and if there was anyone who knew exactly how many times Johnny and Kitty had fought it was the blue-haired girl.

Kitty let out a defeated sigh and wiggled a little on the embrace to settle into it properly. Might as well get the best out of this- 

“ _Oh_ , they have frappes!” Phantom trilled in awe. Kitty twitched. 

If only Phantom would go away. Ugh. She couldn’t deal with _males_ right now.

“Can’t you leave that thing alone?” Hissed Ember, who had seen the teen open the conversation with her kitty kat just to completely ignore her right after in favor of the menu. The bitch boy needed to _focus_ , they were supposed to be _on a mission here_. 

“Hey! You were the one calling me skinny earlier!” Remarked the teen, only to get a raised eyebrow back from the rockstar.

“As if a single frappe is going to fix that. Give me that!” She sneered at him and snatched the laminated paper from his hands. Phantom tried to snatch it back and failed. So he resorted to pouting and tried to give her the sad puppy dog eyes. 

It wasn’t going to work with the matchstick, he knew, but it was good practice.

To pull this shit with Ember you had to be either Kitty, Youngblood, or an honest-to-god puppy. He was not risking ticking off Kitty more than he already had. Youngblood was not here — for obvious reasons—. Cujo _was here_ _and_ didn’t hate him, but sadly the dog wouldn’t be any help right now. 

The pup was already accepting belly rubs from the waiters and completely ignoring the world around him. 

Again: Priorities. 

So really, Danny was just doing this for the sake of being extra. 

While Ember and Danny continued with their dramatic standoff, the other girl blinked rapidly and turned her head towards Phantom.

“Oh” Kitty’s bad mood banished almost magically in favor of curiously peering at the teen’s figure. Danny fidgeted on his seat apprehensively.“I hadn’t noticed. You are really lean.” Ember snickered. Cujo — coming back from the belly rub induced coma — barked. Phantom sighed and just accepted defeat. 

“I suppose that’s somewhat better-” He grumbled under his breath.

Kitty allowed a tiny smile to escape from her lips but shook herself slightly to get back on track. “What are you two even doing here anyway?” She asked, alternating glances between them. 

“Pretty sure you already know,” Ember answered, rubbing her cheek against kitty's green hair and sending A Look at Phantom. “Because _someone_ is not subtle. _at. all._ ” She ended with a hiss and a flare of her hair. Kitty winced lightly at the confirmation. Phantom rolled his eyes.

“Oh, _Cry me a table, matchstick._ ”

Kitty knew alright. Ember made it her personal business to get involved in whatever petty fight Kitty got into, more so if it was about Johnny. Phantom getting involved in the aftermath — and not the fight itself — was new though.“It was just another stupid fight. And- You know, his obsession-”

“Nope. That’s no excuse, Kath.” Ember cut her off. “If you can work around yours for him, then so can he.”

“You can do better.” The teenage boy agreed while Ember continued squeezing her. 

“What do you suggest then?”

Phantom and Ember exchanged a look, mirth flashing in their glowing green eyes and matching smirks growing bold, they turned to look back at Kitty. The green-haired girl gulped down her growing unease. In her experience, these two banding together was never a good thing for anyone. 

“We are here to talk to you about the Remember Initiative.”

-.-.-.-

“Such a skinny boy!”

“Hey! I’m just lean-!” Phantom let out a yelp as he ducked under yet another juice box “What’s with you people and your obsession with my weight-! Ugh! If you would just listen-! Wait. Is that apple grape?” He said the last part in a hushed rush, looking in silent awe at one of the little juice boxes she was about to throw his way.

The Lunch Lady preened.

“Boxy got them for me! 100% Juice Fruit guaranteed!” She was radiating smugness about these facts.

“Oh my gosh- Wait! NO. That’s not what I came here for!” Danny managed to shake himself out of his stupor just in time to keep evading the Lady’s attempts to shove a spoon full of food down his throat while he was distracted with the juice. 

The last time she had gotten a hold of him he had ended up feeling like one of his mom's thanksgiving turkeys. Danny gulped. Best to just go for it and hope for the best. 

“Did you know that there are 37.2 million people living in food-insecure households?!”

The screamed question froze the lunch lady on her tracks. At the look of horror his words achieved, he decided to keep going. 

“1 in 6 American children don’t even know where their next meal is coming from.”

The lunch lady let out a horrified gasp, “Those poor children-!”

And with that, the woman exchanged her attempts at stuffing him for furious-but-mournful whisperings. She looked really constipated about this new information. Danny almost felt sad. Almost. 

“There is a way to help, you know?”

The lunch lady’s head snapped back towards the half-ghost, eyes narrowed in a glare. Not the usual I’m-going-to-choke-your-skinny-ass-in-food glare, but an I’m-paying-attention-to-your-skinny-ass glare. 

Danny refrained from openly cheering after sensing his upcoming victory. Better not chance it. 

“Have you ever heard about old San Nicolas?" 

-.-.-.-

"Also, can I please get a Juice Box?”

-.-.-.-

“You know,” Danny murmured, slurping noisily from one of his juice boxes as he watched from a safe distance how Johnny and Skulker got wrecked by a pair of cute-murderous-girls, “I wasn’t expecting that to work so well.”

His only response was a pair of little barks from the green puppy that was happily squirming on his lap.

The boy paused on his watch to look down at Cujo. Danny extended one of his hands towards the puppy to carefully try to swat at him. The cub rolled onto his back and trapped Danny's upcoming fingers between his paws with a playful growl, giving little nibbles to the appendage. 

He couldn’t help the giddy giggles that escaped him. 

Those little paws were precious.

At the sound of high pitched screams Danny's head snapped back up to continue watching the ongoing smackdown, surrendering complete possession of his hand to Cujo to do as he pleased. 

If the Initiative didn’t work out, both girls would do awesome on the wrestling circuit. Not like Ember lacked in the costume department.

Speaking of costumes, he wondered if the match stick would let him borrow her feathered hat. That thing was awesome. 

Better just ask. 

Once she was done throwing down with skulker, of course. 

He was not about to become cannon fodder. 

Priorities.

-.-.-.-

“Ahoy! me fellow comrades!! Your future Cap'n 's talking!! I'm here on a recruiting mission to embark on the most perilous dangers of the Realms!! May ye, dear comrades, embark under your own risk! Arrrgh!! ”

Thanks to Youngblood’s presence the main residential area of Phantom’s keep was starting to become complete disarray. The adult ghosts were frantic for the possible kidnapping of the tiniest ghosts that was most likely going to happen. The children amongst them were cheering for the possible playtime in their future. 

The guards were starting to panic. No one had seen the kid enter, much less bring along that enormous ship of his. The little brat was not supposed to be here!

“Who the freaking hell let Young Blood get in?!” One of the guards hollered.

“It’s fine, I invited him.” Came the cheerful reply from behind the guard. "I'm expanding the lair so the kids have more space to mess around. Just don't tell them."

The ghost was startled at the voice but didn’t panic anymore. Instead, they started to relax. They knew that voice, but they needed to confirm-

“P-Phantom?”

Phantom, in full cosplay and sporting the biggest feathered pirate hat on this side of the realms, landed lightly beside the startled ghost with a little chuckle, “Just play along, man.”

“Also, pretty sure there should be a ‘Lord’ in there somewhere.”

“I-I thought you preferred to not be called that, my lord?”

Phantom winced.

“Ah- No. It's- You know what? Never mind, I keep forgetting you guys don’t really get updates of pop culture on this side of the coin” Phantom frowned. “I really should see about getting some wifi for this place”

He continued to murmur about the updates he would need to do to the tech to make that possible. But the guard was not paying attention to his words anymore. 

He was staring speechless at the whole pirate get-up the halfa had managed to assemble. It had been mostly borrowed last minute — not that the guard knew that—. It looked really good. Especially the gold hoop earrings that kept swaying slightly alongside the fluffy white hair with every motion of Phantom’s head. 

The guard let out a dreamy sigh. 

Their Lord was so cute. 

“How is everything going?”

“Wha-?” Getting suddenly pulled out of their daydreaming 

“The preparations?” Danny hummed distractedly, diligently searching for his journal and pen among the numerous layers of clothing he had donned for the occasion. Why the fuck did this thing have so many pockets? 

“Oh,” Came the ghost’s soft exclamation, suddenly remembering the requests the owner of the keep had left the last time he had come around. Finally emerging victorious from his search, Phantom turned to look at them, raising an eyebrow at the lack of proper explanation “Oh, yes! Everything is going smoothly, and we received the last confirmations this morning, sir.”

Danny smiled at the answer, completely unaware of the effect his playful smile had on the guard and the other ghosts that had started to converge there upon seeing their 'landlord'. “Awesome.”

That was the last one. 

-.-.-.-

Well, _almost_ the last one.

He must admit that the shell shocked expressions on Sam and Tucker were funny the first few minutes. 

But after having to repeat himself over and over again it had gotten increasingly less funny.

“Y-you are leaving?” Tucker stuttered.

Danny sighed, “Yes, _we_ are leaving. As in, Jazz and me.”

After gaping at him for another few seconds, Sam finally gathered herself enough to start talking again.

“what about the ghost?”

“I- um- already took care of that," Danny mumbled, nervously avoiding eye contact while playing with his milkshake straw. “I also cashed in some debts and asked some favors from my allies, so most will be taken care of until we come back. Either way, I will leave enough Fenton Tech for the both of you and Val. Just in case.”

“Enough tech?” Sam repeated incredulously. “That’s it? Just leave some tech and jump boat just like that?” Danny frowned but refrained from answering her until he thought it through. Sam wouldn't accept less. 

Jump boat? That was not really the case. Jazz and he had really put some thought into this, heck even before the Internship on Loony Capital had come up — specifically, since Jazz’s breakthrough — the siblings had already been toying with ways to get some of the most persistent ghosts to back the fuck off, distract them with better and useful targets or entice them into submission. 

At first, it had been a tentative thing, something fragile that they didn’t let themselves hope for. But with Jazz’s change of course of action, it had become something more urgent. 

_They had to pull it off._ There were no other options. 

Danny pursed his lips, then took a deep breath to strengthen himself for what was coming. "That's not it-"

“You are just going to dump us.” She announced like it was final in a harsh whisper. 

At least she was keeping her tone quiet. 

“No one is getting dumped, Sam,” Danny tried to reassure her in the same tone of finality, sans the harshness. “I told you. We already thought this through. I already put some plans in motion and rigged some backups and- ok. Meaby they are not good enough to be permanent but-”

“You are going to put everyone at risk just because Jazz somehow got the ridiculous idea that ‘talking it out’ is the answer” She scoffed. 

“Maybe it is. Maybe not. We won’t know until we try.”

“They are ghosts-”

“So am I.” Danny Interjected. Sam seemed to choke on her next words. 

“You are not a ghost Danny.” She had, somehow, gained a tone even more quiet and harsh than her previous one. 

“Aren't I?” He was looking directly into her amethyst eyes. Daring her to fight him on this.

He already knew she wouldn’t. 

She had opened her mouth to rebut but closed it immediately after. She took a long breath; most likely to prepare for her next rant than to calm herself. Weighing her options. She didn’t seem willing to have that particular conversation. Not yet. Danny had counted on that. “It's still a goddamn risk.” She finally countered, a slight sliver of defeat coloring her words.

Maybe he had been a little harsh, but he needed her to _understand_. “There is risk in every choice I could make. This is not different-”

“What about us?”

Ok, so she was just getting her second wind. _Fucking amazing._ “Sam, please-”

“We are your friends!”

“And she is my sister!” He finally snapped. 

She startled. Gazing at him speechless for a moment before standing up and storming out of her seat without a backward glance, making the people on her way part like the red sea. Leaving in her wake a bunch of curious persons staring after her and throwing shameless glances to their table. 

So much for not causing a scene in the middle of the Nasty Burger. 

The boys ignored the stares. They were already accustomed to being the focus of attention. Almost never positive, mind you. But that was what cleansings were for. 

Tucker, who had been silent for most of the back and forth, finally spoke. 

“She just needs time to cool off.” 

The Fenton boy would be lying if he said he hadn’t seen this coming. Sam had always been very opinionated and believed herself to be right most of the time. In her defense, she usually was right and knew how to go about expressing it to her friends without resorting to this kind of standoff. This just appeared to have struck a nerve.

Living with her parents and having to fight for every single choice she wanted to make had left her on a constant defense mode that the boys had learned to navigate in their years of friendship. It hadn’t been easy for anyone. But neither Danny nor Tucker were perfect. They had their quirky shit to deal with. 

The three of them stuck together and hadn’t bothered to try and expand their friend group that much over the years. Not like they had many options. But that was ok. 

Until now. 

With Danny leaving them the relative feeling of a support system was trembling at its foundation. 

She was probably scared. So was Tucker if the wobbly but sincere smile he was giving him was any indication.

Danny had to admit that when he let himself think about it he got scared too. 

They had been in the same boat for a while and parting ways was not something they had accounted for, not for the near future, at least. 

In a weird way, they still would be in the same boat even after they were apart. Struggling to learn how to function without the other there. Sam and Tuck would have each other, they were resilient, he was sure they could cope. He would have Jazz like he always had, enough said. And they would keep going like they always did.

Tucker was right. She would come around. But-

Danny slumped on his seat, running a hand through his hair releasing a big sigh.

“Yeah, I know” He murmured looking pensively in the direction their friend had stormed off. “Doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

“So, you are not mad?” Danny asked when he finally turned around towards Tucker.

“Nah, man. Just a little squeezy about dealing with this without you. But if your sister is really going to do this she is going to need you there.” Tucker shuddered a little bit. “I have never been there personally but if the social media and forums are not lying Gotham is a goddamn beast dude.”

The halfa hummed in agreement. Not like Amity Park didn’t have its own reputation on their corner of the internet, but still.

_Gotham._

Danny took a sip from his milkshake before doing a mental check-list and frowning, “I’m starting to feel like I’m forgetting something” he whispered. 

“Oh god, please don’t say that.”

“It’s okay,” Danny had made his best at planning, so his friends wouldn’t have to deal with the ghost in his absence. But with things like this, you never knew for sure. Not until it slapped you right across the face.“Probably just the paranoia.” ‘ _I hope_ ’ he finished mentally with a weak laugh.

“ _Dude_ ,” Tucker started before taking hold of his friend's hand and squeezing it. “If you need help with anything I’m your man. just say the word.”

Tucker may not understand the full extent of the situation, but he was trying, and that meant a lot to the Fenton. He squeezed back and shot his friend a small but grateful smile. 

“It’s ok. Thanks, Tuck-” He cut himself off, being interrupted by the sudden ding of one of Tucker’s devices. 

The afro American boy ignored the sound though, in favor of putting his full attention on his friend, an action that demonstrated how serious he was with his words, but Danny was already lost in thought, staring intently at the briefly, but brightly, illuminated screen.

“Actually-” The halfa suddenly chirped, turning his full attention back to the boy across the table. Tucker just blinked back, waiting. Danny leaned forward dragging the other boy towards him so he could continue with a whisper. “You _could_ help me with a pair of things.”

The mischievous smile Tucker was witnessing had come out of nowhere and couldn't presage anything good, but as it was not aimed at him — necessarily — he couldn't help but join in. 

Several cities over, some of Gotham's more infamous residents couldn't find an explanation to the sudden shiver that ran up their spines.

-.-.-.-

  
  


When Danny made it back home he didn't waste time tracking his sister down. She was down in the lab, typing away on the main computer and using one of her shoulders to keep her mobile pressed against her ear.

She was in the middle of a conversation and still managing to rewrite part of the ghost portal code like a pro.

His sister sure loved multitasking. 

At the sound of the door closing behind the younger Fenton, Jazz looked up from the screen to shoot a brief smile to her brother before carrying on with her conversation. 

"Yes. That’s perfect, I will be sending the three files then-"

The boy froze on his step and blinked a pair of times. She was already talking with one of the G. A. proctors? When he left this morning he had just dumped his proposals on Jazz for a second revision. He wasn't expecting to have them sent already.

Hmm. Well, to be fair, he _had_ rambled at Jazz about his projects relentlessly whenever he had a chance and didn't feel like death warmed over. 

Which weren't many times. But once he got into a ramble it was an Olympic endeavor to shut him up. He was a Fenton. It was in their blood. Jazz did it too, even if she tried to chalk it up to healthy-and-completely-natural excitement.

So. Jazz already knew the contents pretty well, it was just a question of pulling off the presentation, which was the thing that Jazz was supposed to check over. 

His sister had given him some tips, and even if his parents were not as invested in the writing process as in the practical, the fruit loop had more than enough experience doing it and didn't give two flying fucks over whether or not Danny wanted his knowledge.

Danny knew monologing was an essential part of a villainous experience but he had spent way too much time listening to Vlad bitch about most of his employees to last him a lifetime.

Even little Madeline couldn't stop the loneliness that had brought the madness. Danny had put so many hopes in the fluffy thing.

Letting out a resigned sigh the boy decided to just let it go and be grateful that his sister - who had more than five Universities fighting over her- deemed it acceptable already. 

He liked writing his ideas down, but using formal language and fudging APA was fucking exhausting.

Good fucking riddance. He thought, shaking his head slightly and sending a light sneer in the computer's direction. As if the files on it could feel his disdain from his position on the other side of the room. 

Danny spotted some of her sister’s nail polish bottles by her side on the table and made a beeline for them and took most of the little bottles before retreating to a chair on the other side of the desk. 

He had heard some of the cheerleaders saying that the nail polish helped to keep the nails from getting all fucked up quite as easily, and it had caught his attention.

Danny had looked down at his hands and winced. Normally he didn’t pay much attention to his nails, but ever since getting on a constant string of fights he was more aware of how easily the goddamn things could break on you if you didn’t trim them properly, and it hurt like a bitch every time. It always seemed to be the tiniest things that told you to ‘fuck off’ to your face like nothing else. 

Danny guessed that it was worth the try. And if anything, putting some color on them would help hide some of the blood — _and ectoplasm_ — that got under his fingernails. 

So he tried it out.

By this point, he was not sure if it really helped or he was just fooling himself into thinking it did work. The only sure thing was that he didn't feel comfortable going without it anymore.

Danny liked to borrow the clear nail protector from Jazz, but most of the polish he had in his possession had been previously Sam's. All pastels and cheery colors that her mom kept insisting on buying her because they kept being used.

“Thank you, Miss Gordon!”

If she had bothered to pay more attention to her daughter’s friends for more than sneering at them she may have noticed Danny's pastel pink nails. But she hadn't. And that had just ensured Danny a constant supply of pastels to cover his bloodied nails with-

“So, how did it go?”

"Uh." The boy startled at the sudden proximity of the voice. He looked up from his nails and to his sister, who was now seated beside him. 

"The execution." Jazz prodded, smiling at him in anticipation. It looked downright creepy, considering the words she used.

“Seriously Jazz?” He snorted. "You make it sound like I went there to dispatch murder at random."

“Don’t be ridiculous.” His sister scoffed, watching how her brother resumed painting his nails. “They are already dead. You couldn’t kill them any more than they already are.”

“I could certainly try.”

“Danny-”

"Let's just say the all-nighter paid off, and leave it at that."

“So you had fun.” She teased. Stealing back one of the bottles of polish to finish her own nails with a second coat. 

“For the most part, but-” He stopped, struggling to find words to describe the sheer mayhem that went down in the zone- 

Jazz just hummed and gave him a little nod, still focusing on her nails. Danny relaxed. He could tell her later. When he had cooled off some more from the attack-protect mode he got into whenever he visited the zone. Remembering it all right now would just set him off again. 

“So, what do you want for dinner?” The redhead asked suddenly.

Danny blinked a pair of times, perplexed, and stole a look at the clock.“It’s a little late to be asking that, don’t you think?”

“I suppose, but I decided to wait for you and then got sidetracked with the files.” She really needed to work on her awareness of time. “Didn’t even notice the hour.”

“I don’t even remember what we have in the cupboards.”

“Maybe we could-” She didn’t manage to suggest something before she got interrupted by their mother’s voice.

“Dinner is ready!”

“They made dinner?” Danny whispered to Jazz in dread. 

“So it seems,” she responded, sharing his dread.

“Why did they make dinner? They never make dinner!”

“I mean, they do for special occasions, like-” She shuddered. “Like thanksgiving.”

This was ridiculous. Jazz and he were normally the ones cooking. Their parents spent most of their time in the lab or trying to hunt down ghosts. Today was not a holiday. They hadn’t invented anything new worth the ‘celebration’. There wasn’t a reason for them to-

“Oh! and Vlad is here~!”

Danny slammed his face against the desk with a groan.

Jazz winced at the sound. 

“Time to face the music, little bro” She closed the polish bottles and patted him carefully on the back a few times before standing up and going to the kitchen. 

“I still feel like I’m forgetting something...” Danny grumbled under his breath before following his sister upstairs.

-.-.-.-

It was the last Friday of the month and this could perfectly be one of Jazz’s many attempts to make them a functional family unit. 

Except that the Fenton girl had let said efforts slip in favor of pursuing her little brother’s scholarship. 

Oh, And the fruitloop was here. 

Vlad had weaseled into the family’s — unplanned — plans because of course, he did.

“Everything looks absolutely lovely Madeline.”

Jazz would have believed his words. If she hadn't seen the man poke at the food on the table with the wariness of a man on the death warrant whenever mom was not looking.

The siblings had spent way too many family dinners doing the same thing whenever they couldn’t quite manage to keep the older Fentons off the kitchen. And even when they did, they didn’t lower their guard. The chance of contamination was always a latent threat to the house. 

Jazz turned her head slightly to look at her brother. The boy was, very pointedly, not poking at his food and just watched it with all the scorn he could gather. He refused to do the same things as Vlad, which didn’t mean he was crazy enough to try and eat the food on his plate.

The dinner proceeded with making some catching up, abundant science talk, teasing, scathing remarks, sighing, and finally dissolved in a three-way match between the Fenton children and one Vlad Masters to see who could dispose of the food in the most sneaky way. 

She had always wondered how the man survived with her parents for as long as he did back in their college years. She knew now. 

“Oh! And Jazzrinces finally decided on a college! The G.S.A. is backing up her research on ghosts! Isn't that incredible, V-man?!”

Vlad smiled blandly at Jack. Skillfully suppressing the sneer the man's cheeriness was trying to invoke to his face. He had lots of practice.

“And Danny decided to tag along to help his sister! Isn’t he such a sweet boy?” Maddie added with a cheer a little more forced than her husband’s. But still, cheer.

Now, that. That got Vlad’s attention. And he decided to take advantage of the children’s distraction to get more information and decide a proper plan of action. 

Dany was making it a point to completely ignore the three adult’s conversation. Jazz stuck to taking small sips from her glass of water. That was, until-

“Surely you're not planning on sending them without some proper equipment, are you?” Vlad tutted. “Don’t get me started on weapons. I mean you never know for certain what will be indispensable, right?”

“That’s a wonderful idea!”

The heads of both children snapped up. 

“I mean, most of my research isn’t-” Jazz tried hastily to stop this on its tracks. 

Sadly, it was not to be. 

“Nonsense Jazz,” Her mom interrupted her, “It’s better to be prepared!”

Vlad hummed in agreement, “They won’t, after all, have anyone else to protect them from those trashy ghosts.”

Just like that, the Fenton parents started to list out loud all the things the kids would surely need for the research. 

Vlad smirked.

Danny narrowed his eyes at the pompous fucker.

Jazz resigned herself to keep sighing until the end of times.

-.-.-.-

  
  


“How are we supposed to take this with us..?” Danny whispered looking horrified at all the equipment his parents had just thrown their way

“Can’t you just put it in the thermos?”

“The ectoplasmic energies of each Item would clash horribly” Danny winced 

“You tried to...?” Jazz side-eyed him

“Yes.” He said curtly, “Wouldn’t really recommend” he continued with the air of someone haunted by the consequences of their life choices. death choices. Both were accurate, she supposed.

Jazz swallowed.

Cue in more silent horrified staring at the equipment.

“Maybe if we start with some boxes-”

“BEWARE!!! THE BOX GHOST!!!”

“Oh my god-!” 

“I Fucking knew it!!”

-.-.-.-

A little while after, once the ghost box was _gone,_ and the siblings had retreated to Jazz’s room for safety and the opportunity of proper evening gossip. The fruitloop came barging into the room. 

“Ok. I raided the kitchen. There is nothing edible in this house. How do you even survive.” He stated, not asked, in a deeply judgemental tone.

“Magic. Pokemon Magic.” Danny deadpanned from his place on the bed. Jazz, who was cuddled beside him, was still chewing on the dry crackers that managed to survive the onslaught of their parents, for the simple reason that the things had been in her room. 

Vlad sighed and started to massage his temples. 

“Fine. Truce. Grab your things, we are going out.” 

Jazz slightly choked on her crackers. Danny just choked on air. “What? Where-?”

“To get some _proper_ food, of course.” The man sneered like it was completely obvious and tagging a smirk on for good riddance.

“Why would-” 

“You have directions. I have the money. Chop chop. Before your parents catch us.” With that, the millionaire turned around and left, leaving the door wide open fully expecting them to follow along. 

The siblings stared at each other for a moment before scrambling after Vlad. 

Food was more important than playing the archnemesis-game. 

For the hundred time that day:

Priorities.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I couldn’t help the fucking references. Danny is a dork and I am ashamed. 
> 
> -.-.-.-
> 
> I headcanon Danny as someone who really likes pet names, be it because he really likes the person or because it pisses them off. Two stones a deader bird. 
> 
> -.-.-.-
> 
> What do you mean The Avengers aren’t a boyband?
> 
> -.-.-.-
> 
> The siblings are firm believers of the borrowing culture. There is no shame in asking to borrow some things.
> 
> Are those Ember’s hat & earrings? Yes. Yes, they are.
> 
> Why does Danny have his ears pierced, you ask? BECAUse there is no absolute heteronormative bullshit in this household AND I MUST ADD THAT-!
> 
> -Danny & Jazz watched ‘The parent trap’ when they were small little beans and were really interested in whether or not piercing your sibling’s ears was the ultimate bonding moment. 
> 
> Jazz insisted on researching a lot more about proper sterilizing, mind you- but like the tiny feral unsupervised cupcakes they were, they decided to try it. 
> 
> Jazz already had her ears pierced, SO, yeah.
> 
> It hurt like a bitch for Danny, and Jazz panicked for a week afterward about infections, but it was indeed a good bonding moment. 
> 
> -.-.-.-
> 
> If I ship Jason with some fucking therapy does that mean I can ship him with Jazz? 
> 
> Ship’s name is JJ for you. 
> 
> … I just gave myself YOI flashbacks.
> 
> Fuck.
> 
> -.-.-.-
> 
> You might want to say: ‘but author-san, those are not all the ghosts Danny deals with?’, and you are damn right they aren’t, but you must trust in Danny thousand-back-ups Fenton, my children.
> 
> (Also, where would be the fun if everyone was accounted for since now? You will see what went down later on. :p)
> 
> -.-.-.-
> 
> Don’t know if you noticed, but Jazz is not the only one that thinks Danny is a cutie patootie :v
> 
> Danny has long ago resigned himself to the being called “Lord” thing. Is better than the ‘K’ word.
> 
> -.-.-.-
> 
> The thing about the nails is something I do. I started because they looked pretty, I kept painting them because I felt they broke up more easily if I didn’t put like three coats of polish on them. 
> 
> At least I don’t bite them as much anymore. :p
> 
> -.-.-.-
> 
> If there is someone on this green earth that knows about the struggles of living with Jack and Maddie Fenton, that someone is Vlad Masters. 
> 
> Change my mind.
> 
> You can’t.


	6. That one weird uncle-godfather-almost-parent-figure-thingy that refuses to go away because you're a walking disaster and they love you to pieces (sometimes literally)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vlad.exe has started ‘the scheming’. These kids are tired. And another agent of Chaos is here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can’t believe I can get away with using that title. 
> 
> Why is no one stopping me? 
> 
> I was going to post this earlier but then Vlad bitch slapped me and said he deserved better. I had to rewrite a good chunk of this and move around things. 
> 
> And then I remembered he is not my boss and can’t force me to do shit. Much less write more angst than what is really needed. Which is really little, mind you. So I moved things around, again.
> 
> *Parkour.jpg*
> 
> Just be aware that the man has reasons.
> 
> As the writer, I reserve the right to withhold information for now.
> 
> And remember what I said about taking liberties?? Yeah, still doing that. Roll with me, pls-
> 
> Good news! This and another chapter more before Gotham! Fucking finally.

Vlad considered himself a man of simple pleasures.

If something caught his attention and would make him happy then he went and _got it._

Not caring about what other people might think about his choices. If his happiness was on the line what other people had to say was irrelevant. Unless said people were influential enough to affect his future, in which case he had to tread carefully. But he never gave up on what he had put his sights on. 

This way of thinking had accompanied him since he was a young lad and It didn't seem like it was going to change anytime soon. If his _experience_ with Jack and Maddie hadn't made the trick he didn't know what possibly could. 

At the time, meeting Jack Fenton at the University of Wisconsin had opened the door to new possibilities. The man got so pumped up that he seemed to exude cheer all over the place, it was a sharp contrast to the dull family Vlad had left behind in his search for higher education, for something better than the leftovers they hoped would make him happy. 

What Jack brought to the table was new. A field of study no one had ever researched before, not like this, not with proper scientific evidence.

So he had let himself get dragged along. Just to see what it was like. A shot in the dark, so to speak. 

It was enough to intrigue him.

To the point that Vlad, who until that point was gunning for a major in business, had upgraded to a double major to include engineering, with a personal-extra-side of whatever the hell he needed to know to make sense of the things Jack kept spouting around like a complete madman. 

With the proper knowledge, and even more intrigued, Vlad had come to realize that while Jack seemed like a goofball at first sight, there was some backbone to his theories. That had just sealed the deal. 

And then Maddie came along. crashing into them with all the brilliance of a shooting star.

Madeline, who had been the cherry on top. Beautiful, passionate, and headstrong. Well on her way to becoming an amazing engineer with the meanest right hook Vlad had ever seen.

He had become infatuated. It was almost laughable how hard he had hit the ground running with that one. 

It went downhill from there with him none the wiser.

They had shared hopes and dreams with Vlad in a way not even his blood family had. Become his best and only friends. And he was sure that with time and careful planning Madeline could become _more_.

Could anyone blame him for thinking this could be what a true family was like? For thinking that this was it. 

They had been his _everything_ , and as such he would have done anything within his power to lay _the world_ before them. 

Which made their betrayal hurt deeper.

He had failed to see, as submerged as he was in his little happy bubble and the research, the growing distance between them and him, the sneaking around, the way they had started to look at each other. The distraction that had lead to mistakes 

Irreversible mistakes.

Ones they hadn’t stuck around for. 

He had been a complete mess after that. 

He had carried on. Once out of the hospital he has persevered and achieved everything that got on his way, and if he used a little bit of ghostly help that was no one's business but his. And maybe he would have been happy with that, but there was always that little thorn that seemed to be stuck to his core. He had tried to play the fool. It hadn't worked. And it wasn't even his style, to begin with.

So when the opportunity presented itself to try and fix some of what he had lost in the past, he took it. 

He had planned to barge in guns blazing. And he did. But he hadn’t been expecting the pair of scrawny teens he had been presented with. Much less for one of them to have been subjected to the same affliction that haunted his days. Just that the brat had it worse because it had been his _parents_ who had half-killed him and not his best friends.

Vlad would find out later about what exactly happened in the Fenton's basement and laugh bitterly while sipping cognac because that made it even more ironic. 

He had thought about it long and hard. And decided to accept the child as his apprentice and honorary son. The kid was in urgent need of some proper training. A pair of meals for him and his sister wouldn't hurt either — as blind as he had been back then, he was coherent enough to still recognize the mistake that was letting either of his ‘friends’ in the kitchen. — He was deliberately choosing to disregard their parent’s crime in order to help them. 

He was amicable like that. Kind, even.

If only the ungrateful little badger cooperated.

jasmine, who had eventually realized what exactly was going on — The man had seen it coming from miles away, the girl was smart and her disaster of a brother kept stumbling around town as if he didn’t have a care in the world. It was distressing to witness. — and not just the surface passive-aggressive way they sniped at each other in public, would help him realize that he had been going all wrong about approaching Daniel.

He had been treating him like he used to treat the boy’s parents

The older Fentons had never treated him seriously, so he always had to find dramatic ways to make them go along with what he wanted. Come to think of it, he had done that with a lot of people...

So, he had unconsciously regressed to his college years. Never a good stage to revive. It had obviously led straight to disaster, and he might or might not have neglected his business in the meantime. Thankfully, Jasmine had taken it upon herself to snap him out of it. Trying to run for mayor in a town in the middle of nowhere. Him. A goddamned Billionaire. What was he even thinking?

Obsessions were a dangerous thing. He would need to be more careful in the future. 

To summarize, Jasmine had been, as much as it pained him to accept it, most helpful in their little chats on how to deal with teenagers.

Now, he realized, the desire to keep striving for his beloved Madeline's hand was putting a dent in his interactions with the little badger, and even his sister would show reluctance if he went a little too far. And if he wanted to educate this childr- child, educate this child properly, that was not going to help him to accomplish his goals.

He was a businessman. He knew when risks were acceptable. Knew what investments would not be profitable.

There was a reason he had managed to convince the University of Wisconsin to finance their research when there wasn’t any concrete proof of ghosts, a reason he had managed to become a millionaire. Other than sleight of hand. That is. 

In the end, the final choice was pretty obvious. 

Having his obsession slowly shift targets after meeting the kids had been quite the experience. 

Especially because he, self-made billionaire, the man on top of everything, who had fingers in all of the biggest pies out there, The Vlad Masters Himself, had not seen it coming. 

-.-.-.-

Vlad would love to say he exhorted the best place to eat out of the boy. But really. Once Vlad said he was paying Daniel was more than happy to shoot for the tastiest and expensive things the siblings normally couldn’t afford. Jasmine was not openly contributing to her brother’s effort to suck him dry of money, but she was not stopping him either. 

He didn’t have any proof those two could communicate telepathically but by this point, he felt he didn’t need any. They probably had some sort of silent signals. The sneaky little shits. 

The man didn’t mind. Not really. He got the brats all for himself, after all. It was a win-win situation. 

“So,” he started with a hum “What happened with the box ghost?” Vlad inquired

The boy glared at him. Vlad smirked. Jasmine was making a great job at feigning deafness while looking completely done with them.

“I dealt with him accordingly.”Danny glowered, stabbing his burger with a fork. The billionaire wasn’t sure if that was meant to make a point or the teen went feral on automatic these days even with his food. “The fuck, Vlad. I thought we were in peace mode.”

“Excuse you, child. I didn’t have anything to do with that. It was just making a simple question.” Which was mostly true, Vlad wouldn't lower himself to the point of using such an annoying ghost as a lackey. He just liked to poke fun at little badger “And even if I had, that was before I called a truce. It would have been completely valid.”

Daniel just grumbled, conceding the point, and continued mangling the food on his plate. The little heathen. 

Having lost the attention of the boy, he took a sip of his drink and turned to look at the other sibling. 

“You convinced them to do your research in ghosts, hm?” 

“Not like it was hard.” she was eating at a more sedate pace than her brother, but still a little faster than would be considered appropriate in polite company. “Thanks to a _pair of someones_.” she sniffed at them. Danny smiled at her but kept his mouth closed and otherwise occupied with food. Vlad just hummed in quiet approval. 

“Good job.” then he frowned. “But also, why?”

“Why what?”

“Not the best place you could have chosen to do that, is it now?”

“Maybe not the most agreeable, no.” She conceded, reaching over to take a napkin. “But _it is_ the best place for my purposes.” 

“Why though?” He insisted, hoping for a proper explanation. 

“Why not?” she retorted, the picture of innocence taking another bite. Vlad sighed and rolled his eyes, he kept forgetting she could be as bad as her brother sometimes. 

“Does it matter, old man? We are going anyway.” Daniel finally joined the conversation again, waving one of his french fries in an extremely judgy manner in Vlad's direction “I didn’t pull all those strings in the zone for you to come complaining and think we are backing down just because you don’t like it.“ 

“Oh ho, strings, you say?” Vlad mocked, “Would that have anything to do with the reason why Skulker came to me seeking refuge with his tail between his legs?”

Daniel almost choked on his next bite. Enough that Jasmine started looking worried, most likely about whether or not she would have to use the Heimlich on him. She relaxed when her brother finally sucked some air into his lungs just to immediately start laughing. 

“It does have some relation, yes” Jasmine took over for her brother, seeing as he was too busy making an impression of the lion king's hyenas. It was a good thing they were in the more private part of the restaurant. “We, um, had to get creative.”

Vlad just raised both his eyebrows at her, and with a background of her brother's cackles, she finally acceded to give in some ground. 

“I have a theory, and frankly, it would be faster if I do this in Arkham. For a bunch of reasons I don’t feel comfortable discussing at the moment.” Jasmine offered, “Plus, seeing as Danny is insisting on tagging along and at the moment he can’t really afford to leave Amity for longer than necessary-” Hearing that made Daniel come back from his endless snickering.

“Hey! don’t try to pin this on me. This was all you-!” 

After that, a free for all started between the siblings and Vlad stopped listening, feeling honest to the ancients offended. Couldn’t afford to leave longer? _Please_ , Vlad could fix that in a jiffy, they just needed to ask- but nooo, the brats always had to go to the extremes for everything.

Although Vlad had to admit that Jasmine most likely had good reasons — If Daniel had said it, he wouldn’t even contemplate the validity of such a loose statement — for saying it would be faster doing it in Gotham- ugh, he had to stop himself from sneering just at the mention of the place. 

He had decided to open a branch office for one of his companies in the damned city and it had been nothing more than a headache in the last years. He had opted to send people over from the other branches to take care of everything rather than hiring people from Gotham to fill the spots available. 

After a pair of months of operations, it had become obvious that the place wasn’t working as smoothly as any of his other offices all over the world. 

It seemed like his employees didn’t have the _spine_ to deal with the city's _threats_ properly. And hiring more Gothamites, who were guaranteed to have a spine on behalf of _being raised in the place_ , would just make the mess bigger without him there to supervise. 

Which he hadn’t had the time to do. 

Come to think of it, the only reason he hadn’t taken it into his own hands was because-

His train of thought stopped right in its tracks, eyes snapping open as he took a long look at the kids in front of him. 

They seemed to have stopped discussing at some point, but the teenaged halfa was currently trying to steal some food from the plate of the young lady at his side. His sister, on retaliation, was moving her fork in an exaggerated stab motion to discourage her thieving little brother. 

“Oh,” he uttered under his breath, as good as speechless and unable to take his eyes off them. 

_I didn’t take matters of Gotham into my own hands because of them._

The thought, and the implications that came along with it, struck him so suddenly that they left him startled enough to start laughing without care for present company. 

Oh, this was too good!

Daniel was watching him warily. As if Vlad showing any kind of amusement was a sign of danger. Which, considering, was fair enough. 

Jasmine just took the opportunity the distraction lent her to keep eating peacefully before her brother got any other funny ideas about food-thievery. 

Vlad put his elbow on the table, interlacing his fingers so he could rest his chin on the joined hands, smirking and allowing himself to let out some random chuckles from time to time. Seeing the boy get all ruffled up was fun. Especially when he hadn’t done anything yet.

‘Yet’ being the keyword.

Oh, this was going to work perfectly after all. 

-.-.-.-

After eating their fill and doing some more quasi civilized talking they finally got some dessert and the siblings took the opportunity to order some take-out to have for breakfast. It was never a bad thing to secure food beforehand, and Vlad had seemed agreeable enough. 

Way too agreeable if you asked Danny. But food was food, and there wouldn’t be no looking at horses' mouths in this household, no sir. 

Vlad said his goodbyes claiming to have urgent business to attend to, and vanished into the night like the dramatic pseudo-vampire-ghost he had always aspired to be.

Why the man had bothered to come all the way to Amity Park if he had work to do was beyond Danny, but good riddance. His random giggles were starting to creep him out. 

Once he was sure the fruit loop was not coming back and they were truly alone on the sidewalk, the teen turned around to his sister and found her stifling a yawn on her hand. A quick look at his phone confirmed that it was already pretty late, and having a full stomach always made Jazz get all lethargic on him. He would too, but that was why he consumed coffee religiously, unlike his sister who preferred the occasional vitamin drink. 

So he resigned himself to playing pack mule yet again and let her lean on him so they could start their trek back home. A trek that would be slow as fuck, because Jazz kept insisting on using him as a pillow while they walked rather than focusing on using her feet properly. 

She was lucky he loved her and had ghost cheat codes to support her weight, otherwise the night would have ended very differently. 

Danny huffed and let her snug closer to him.

Now they just needed to sneak into the house without alerting their parents. 

Yey.

-.-.-.-

Jazz had to give it to Danny, he was the best cuddle partner she could have asked for in a brother. 

Though she could admit that her brother’s temperature could fluctuate wildly sometimes while sleeping because of his ghost-core-thingy or other random ghost power, whichever it was at the time had made it a little awkward for them to share sleeping quarters when one of them needed the comfort.

Luckily, they had found ways to deal with the temperature clashes. In summer it was easier to deal with them because in that season her brother's often chilly nature was a complete godsend. Winter was trickier but there was nothing a pair of isolation blankets couldn’t manage, and when Danny's powers decided to be contrary and transform him into a living heater, Jazz was more than happy to take advantage of it. 

They had a few space blankets too, Jazz was pretty sure Vlad had gotten those just for Danny, but her brother had been rather tight-lipped about them, even if he clearly loved them. 

So here they were, sprawled on the bed with Jazz’s arms firmly around her brother’s waist and half her face buried against his upper chest, rejoicing in the coolness emanating from the spot.

She had been awake for a little while but couldn’t make herself let go of her little bro. After they had sneaked in — after Danny had half-dragged her in — they had ended up crashing in her room. This for two important reasons, first because Danny’s room was _still_ a mess after their parents threw all the equipment they could their way, and second because she had refused to let go of her newly acquired pillow. So her bedroom it was. 

Ugh, she would get hungry eventually and would have to go downstairs for their breakfast effectively separating her from the cuddles. Jazz released a little grumble and buried herself deeper into the embrace. 

The only up-side was that she would only have to heat their food and not make it from scratch. As long as she managed to avoid their parents and make it back upstairs she could rejoin her brother without interruptions and-

“Good morning, Princess Jasmine! ”

Wha-?

Jazz lifted herself and turned her head towards the voice so fast she immediately regretted it. There went her neck. she winced and raised a hand to carefully massage her nape. It would never work the same way again. At least she could see the source of the unfamiliar voice now and it left her perplexed. 

There was a ghost on the window sill. 

Why was there a ghost on their windowsill? 

As a general rule, most ghosts tended to stay the fuck away from the Fenton house once they got out of the zone, so this development was very strange. Then again, Jazz had never seen this ghost before. 

It was a female ghost, that was clear, and her hair-

Jazz had to blink a few times, completely awestruck at the number of colors her brain was trying to process at the same time.

She really had rainbow hair. What the-?

The apparent twenty-somethings female ghost had her hair done on a perfect half-up ponytail and displaying all the colors in the visible spectrum, she was clad in a cute summer dress that seemed to be patched up with- were those postage stamps? and a pair of lace-up sandals. She sat with one leg crossed over the other, a giddy smile stamped on her face. She was glowing. literally. 

Meanwhile, Jazz had not bothered to change clothes before going to sleep or even tied her hair up into a bun, and now it looked like she had gotten trapped in one of her parent’s ghost traps. She managed to stifle the urgent need of running to the nearest mirror to tame down her hair as much as she could. She was feeling tacky all of a sudden. 

Ugh. She felt like a hobo just looking at her. she had patches on her dress and she was _still_ _pulling it off_. Maybe that was the ghost’s thing? making other girls felt like vagabonds with just her presence. Jazz blinked a pair of times, brain finally processing the other girl’s words, and becoming even more baffled by the living — animated? embodiment? — rainbow’s presence. 

Had she just called her ‘princess’?

“Um, hi?” Jazz finally greeted her, she sent a look to her still slumbering brother and debated on whether or not she should wake him. On one hand, he had been running himself ragged the last weeks getting everything in order so she was reluctant to do it. On the other hand, there was a ghost on the window. A rather cute one, but still.

Choices. choices.

The redhead turned her whole attention towards the ghost again. _Well, she looks calm enough, and has not set anything on fire or attempted any kidnapping yet, so-_

“Sorry, I’m still rebooting. Do I know you?” Jazz went on, trying to get some sort of grip on the situation. 

“Not really, but I have heard plenty about you.” the ghost beamed, just to falter suddenly and offer a chagrined smile “I must have seemed very rude.” 

“My name is Iris.” She finally presented herself and jabbered on while pointing at the little cloth string bag resting on her hip. “I’m the Infinity Realms’ Official Messenger. And I have a few packages for both of you, my lady.” 

“The Zone’s messenger?” Jazz parroted back. She had never heard about a messenger in the zone, but it was a rather big place and there were things even Danny hadn’t heard about, so it was a possibility. “And just Jazz is fine, thank you.”

The skittle girl just smiled. “Yes, I made the rounds earlier and there were some packages for the crown prince,” she said, confirming the reason for her presence in the room. 

Ok. She could deal with ghosts addressing her brother with titles. And messengers? messengers were fine in her book. She could deal. She got this. Still-

“Danny was in the zone yesterday, though? Why would they wait until now and not just take advantage of his visit?”

“There are some fragile things in here, and your brother seemed to be getting- uh, quite busy yesterday,” she replied, clearly amused. “The senders didn't want to risk it. So here I am!” 

With that declaration, she opened her little bag and started to unload a staggering amount of packages and even some mail into neat little piles. Great, more things to pack. How some of them could get into such a tiny bag was a mystery, but that was probably just ghost zone physics. Or magic. Maybe both.

“Oh, thank you.” Jazz just conceded. It was better to just go along. Iris hummed in acknowledgment, still organizing everything and explaining to Jazz where each pile had come from and some extra information that the messenger had found interesting on her rounds. 

She was quite lively for a ghost.

“Pandora in particular was rather twitchy yesterday about not catching your brother for a chat. Did you know she is having a gathering next month?” Iris gushed at her in low whispers, with all the air of a gossipy neighbor that couldn’t separate themselves from their windows. “It’s a shame you will not be accompanying them for the festivities.” 

“But Isn’t that just for amazons..?” Jazz asked from her seat on the foot of the bed, where she had moved to have a better view of the things the other ghosts had sent to Danny and her. 

“Yes.”

“...I think I missed something.”

“Haven’t you heard?”Iris giggled. Getting a pen and notepad out of her bag and starting to write something down, she presumably used that to keep inventory. “You are both part of Pandora’s honorary amazons.”

The redhead’s eyes widened. “She can do that-?”

“I mean she is the Queen of the Amazons on this side of the pond, so-” the messenger replied, tapping her pen against her chin and looking up in thought. 

“Wait, does that mean Tucker and Sam are honorary amazons too?” Jazz startled at the sudden sound of her brother’s voice coming from behind her. He was practically on top of her now, still looking half asleep but definitely awake now. She hadn’t even felt him move. 

“Good morning, Lord Phantom!” Iris beamed at him from her spot on the ground among the still growing piles. “For what its worth, I think so, yes.”

Danny couldn’t help himself. He started cackling. 

“Seriously, Danny?” She pursed her lips at him in disapproval.

“You don’t understand. They are going to flip, Jazz. Pandora can count me in.” He gushed, finally getting a hold of himself. 

“She already did. Weren’t you listening to me, My Crown Prince?” Danny sighed.

“I did bubblegums. Sounds amazing.” her brother had already given her a nickname, or many for what she knew, so he probably had met the messenger before this. “So you were talking about some go-away gifts” Jazz sighed and rolled her eyes.

"They are called farewell gifts, Danny" jazz corrected. 

“Whatever. It’s almost the same.” he waved his hand dismissively and looked down at what Iris had just laid down. "You got way too many things there. You are almost done or..? “

"Yep! I was actually just making time until you woke up." She admitted sheepishly, lifting the last package that had come out of the bag and had been all by its lonesome amid the others and passing it along to the halfa. "Your Order is ready, Majesty!”

Jazz watched her brother extend a hand to take the package but his face reflected puzzlement at her words rather than excitement at finally receiving something he ordered.

“Direct from the FarFrozen and the Acropolis, Sir Casper!” 

With those words, Danny seemed to snap wide awake, “already?” He didn't waste any time in seating properly and opening the package. Jazz took the opportunity to peer into it. 

“Jewelry?”

Danny jus hummed back in response and started examining the little jewelry box inside

“you ordered jewelry?” Jazz asked again, a little confused because even if his brother didn’t mind using the occasional accessory it was not like him to own them. Her brother —as well as herself — was more of a borrowing person “Ghostzone’s jewelry?” 

“Yep.”

“why?”

“why not?” Jazz debated tackling him to the ground and tickling him until he talked, but considering they had company the redhead didn’t know very well yet and thus was not completely comfortable around, forcing Danny to spill the tea would have to wait. 

The little shit probably knew it too and was openly smirking at her. 

“hey, colorfalls?” Danny called to Iris

“Yes, winter pools?”

“Am I imagining things or this is _way more_ than what I asked for?”

“The crafters outdid themselves, didn't they? The Pan Queen said it happened because you ‘didn’t specify for shit so you better suck it up, brat.’ The Yeti-man said something too, but it was long and boring, so I forgot~” She ended sheepishly.

“Well, that’s helpful.”

“wouldn't they have explained it in the letters?” Jazz offered, bringing his attention to the pair of envelopes under the probably-handcrafted box. 

Danny grabbed them and grumbled. “Probably. But, ugh, reading.”

Jazz tried to snatch the letters from his hand. Danny dodged her lunge and moved the letters out of her reach. 

“Thought you didn’t want to read them.” Jazz sassed.

“That I don’t want to do it, doesn’t mean I won’t do it. There is a difference, carrot cakes.” 

“Well, get on with it then, cakesicle.” 

They could have continued sniping at each other, as they were fully prepared to do so until Iris talked again.

“I better get going and leave you to it. Places to be, gossip to spread. You understand.” She declared with a playful smile and hopped up from the ground and attached her cloth bag to her hip again. “It was a pleasure to meet you, Miss Jasmine.”

She made her way to the window waving her goodbyes as she went, the siblings waved back a little entranced by the sway of her hair. 

Danny looked thoughtful, he seemed unsure for a moment and ended up waiting until the last moment to call after her.

“Hey,” The girl turned around to raise an eyebrow at him in question. Danny smiled at her and pointed a finger towards her little cloth bag. 

"Do you think I could get one of those?”

-.-.-.-

“Jazz” 

“Yeah?”

“How long was she here for before I woke up?”

“She-” Jazz stopped herself and really thought about it. “I, I don't actually now? I think she was already sitting on the window sill when **_I_** woke up”

Her brother had gone suddenly quiet, watching intently through the window Iris had just left. 

“She has a- quite bubbly personality. Good to know there is someone like her around.” She offered, trying to break the tense silence that had enveloped them. 

“I once saw her knock-out Walker from a single blow,” Danny replied, finally turning to look at his sister. Jazz’s eyes widened. 

“She what?”

“He threatened the network.” Danny deadpanned. “ _One does not simply threaten the network, Jazz_ ” he stressed, seemingly trying to make the importance of a network she didn’t know anything about very clear to Jazz. 

“...That sounds really ominous.”

“She moves around human merchandise in the zone.” Danny explained, “She has- umm, I think you could say she has _a thing_ for humans.”

“...”

“I’m not telling you this to make you wary of her.” Her brother said after the lack of a proper answer, carefully keeping eye contact with her. “Walker was being an ass, he deserved it. Jolly Beans is very helpful around the zone. Has even helped me with a pair of things. A real pal, she is. But-” Danny sighed and ran one of his hands through his hair in exasperation.

“Just- Just don’t mess with her gossip mags ” 

-.-.-.-

“Hey, Danny?” She probed, going through one of the ‘care packages’ that had been sent to them, “Do you think the ghosts know humans don’t wear these types of clothing anymore? They are cute, but-”

“I’m going to tell them.”

“Don’t you dare.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bitch, I tried.  
> Why do I even insist on writing some angst now and then??? I get fucking a writer-block everytime I try. Why do I do this to myself??
> 
> -.-.-.-
> 
> Say hello to Iris, everyone :) 
> 
> She is one of my agents of chaos. She got the Job 5 minutes ago when she bitch slapped me with her bag and the pOssIbiLItieS. 
> 
> (Not to be confused with intrepid reporter, Iris West, that might or might not appear here. )
> 
> -.-.-.-
> 
> Me, writing about sciency stuff, major and double majors like I know what I’m talking about: seems legit.
> 
> -.-.-.-
> 
> It’s fucking sad when the reasons you used to love someone end up becoming the same reasons you end up hating them. 
> 
> -.-.-.-
> 
> I don’t remember if Vlad used Boxy as a lackey? If he did, let’s pretend he didn’t.
> 
> -.-.-.-
> 
> Vlad to Danny and Jazz through all this fucking fanfic:  
> "Surprise bitch. I bet you thought you saw the last of me.gif"
> 
> -.-.-.-
> 
> The moment when your weird-murderous-uncle is actually more responsive to your ‘How-To-Parent’ talks than your actual parents. 
> 
> Press F to pay respects.
> 
> -.-.-.-
> 
> I just want to let you know that one of the reasons Danny curses like a sailor is because he has a great respect for Pandora and that woman puts sailors to SHAME.
> 
> -.-.-.-
> 
> Did the show care about historical accuracy? no. Do I? That's also a no.
> 
> -.-.-.-
> 
> The ghost jewelry will come back later to bite all of us. Be patient. 
> 
> -.-.-.-
> 
> Danny is the Elsa to Jazz’s Anna. 
> 
> -.-.-.-
> 
> UPdate on the JJ Ship!
> 
> I just imagined Bruce looking at this tiny (but feral) red-head psychologist interning on Arkham and seeing how good she is for Jason and just pulling a Mulan’s Grandma when Jason asks her to have dinner with them, like:
> 
> “WoulD YouU like TO sTAy FOREVEr?!?”
> 
> And Dick with, like, a banner and streamers behind him, fully supporting the notion. 
> 
> And-aND! then on the eventual-some-years-in-the-future-engagement party: 
> 
> Jazz: “Jay? Seems your family invited someone to help us celebrate the engagement.”  
> Jason: “Really? Who?”  
> Jazz *Opening the door that leads to the Mansion’s garden that is currently full to the freakin’ brim and deadpanning*: “Gotham.”
> 
> {(And all the fucking league. Let’s be real people-)} 
> 
> Can u Imagine the wedding? The absolute chaos?? If you think the ghosts aren’t crashing the party or even demanding to hold a ceremony in the zone u are a FOOL.
> 
> bECAUSE If DanNo is theIr HighKING, Guess who is their MoTHErFUCkING PRINCESS. 
> 
> It’s what she deserves.
> 
> My god, Jazz would look so pretty on a wedding dress. 
> 
> I’m crying. 
> 
> Danny would definitely sob. 
> 
> Send tissues.
> 
> -.-.-.-
> 
> Great. 
> 
> Now I want to write about the wedding and they haven’t even met in here yet.
> 
> *wishful sighing*
> 
> The struggles of a shipper-
> 
> -.-.-.-
> 
> These goddamned endnotes are getting bigger and bigger. 
> 
> -.-.-.-
> 
> I’m still thinking over Danny’s SO. Guess who. Yes. You are right. It’s the Demon Spawn. You KNOW who I mean. I didn’t make them be a year apart on age just for the giggles. Like, I was aiming for Bros Wreaking Havoc when I started this but then The Shipper Feels struck me dead plus-if-Jazz-is-getting-a-wedding-out-of-this-then-why-the-fuck-not and here we are. What do u think?? Because it’s most likely happening. Though, this one is going to burn slowly, because these boys.
> 
> And, wtf. Why didn’t anyone tell me Bruce and Selina almost got married?? I don’t know what happened to prevent it but I cAlL foUl.
> 
> Who wants a wedding. I want a wedding.
> 
> -.-.-.-
> 
> Me: Writes like 40 pages of this fic  
> Also me: They are random scenes in different chapters and I’m still struggling to wrangle everyone into some sense of order and coherency. 
> 
> The first twenty-something chapters already have titles and brief summaries so that’s something?? I can’t see the light at the end of this tunnel. 
> 
> If you have ideas about things you would like to read about? Between the Bats and the DP Characters? Interactions and blabla? You can write them in the comments and I will see if I can fit some in :D
> 
> I have more or less decided where this is going, but I still need to enrich the chaps, SO, this might take a while. The good thing is that they will probably be way better now that I have Some Plot and I’m not just running blind all over the google doc.
> 
> -.-.-.-
> 
> Really, tho, if you have some headcanons about the characters? Bless. I need help with Steph and slightly less with Cass. 
> 
> I have some plans for Cass. Steph is the one worrying me. 
> 
> -.-.-.-
> 
> Chapter 8 will be their arrival on Gotham! I. am. happy.


	7. Is This The Real Chaos? Is This Just Fantasy?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Siblings on a timeline. Must research. Must pack. Must attempt to backtrack for the last time. It was worth it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If this seems like a mad scramble is because it is. They are on a Time. Limit. People.
> 
> This is mostly dialogue. And self-indulgent af. Beware. 
> 
> I have a question. This is my first time writing fanfic, does this count as crack?? Crack treated seriously??? What even is this thing I have created??? H e l p
> 
> And! Guess what bitches. I might or might not have lied to you in the last chapter. 
> 
> Did I say chapter 8 would be their arrival to Gotham?? ha-haha-HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAH
> 
> OK, hear me out. I can explain it. I DID NOT LIE TO YOU. It was my brain. Blame this on my brain. 
> 
> I mean I could have joined that chapter in this chapter but this is just for the sibs u know?? I t didn’t feel r i g h t
> 
> IM SO SORRY YOU DON’T EVEN KNOW ONE MORE CHAPTER I SWEAR JUST THE ONE 
> 
> The idea just came to me, I was going to do something completely different but I think this is better? Clockwork is living the afterlife I swear-, and this is the best place to put it? At least if I want to use this properly in the future. You will see what I mean next chapter. I hope. We will see. This is so self-indulgent you can’t imagine.
> 
> Both chapters are short( I think ), maybe they can count as interludes? Don't even know how that works, not really. 
> 
> Also, it will give me time to write and sort some of the ideas your comments gave into the story, maybe not all of them, but Some.
> 
> [❤️❤️❤️I LOVE ALL YOUR COMMENTS GUYS. YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW ❤️❤️❤️]

First of all, research on the circle of hell on earth, because you can't go to war without some fucking research, he had learned that the hard way.

You can’t plan for shit if you don’t have good info.

Confiable sources are key.

They needed to sort this out. ASAP.

If his sister. Would. Just. Cooperate.

“You raised me constantly telling me that information is your best weapon & shield and now you are telling me to chill?? The Fuck, Jazz. ”

“I’m not telling you we should _Stop_ , Danny” Jazz explained, waving her hands around to illustrate her point. “I’m just telling you we should _slow down_. If the FBI Man catch onto this-”

“How do you know it's a man?”

“Dan. It's just a meme.”

“It could be an asexual alien working for the government behind this screen and you would never know-! ”

“Fine! What if the asexual alien government worker caught us-?”

“They are not going to catch anything, Jazz.” Danny retorted, waving at the cameras above the computers “See? I put tape on the cameras.” 

His sister gave him an unimpressed stare. 

“And I have Tucker as back-up. I’m not an idiot.”

“It’s been sixteen years, brother.” Jazz sassed back, “And I’m still not sure about that-” She dodged her brother’s sloppy try at slapping with a yelp and threw back her own sloppy bitch slap. 

Things dissolved quickly into a slap fight from there. 

And that was it [ _for the underpaid asexual alien worker_.]

-.-.-.-

They would need Travel Plans™.

They lived in bum-fuck nowhere Illinois and they had to get to Gotham. Jazz’s scholarship covered bus tickets. His scholarship didn’t because it was still a new thing on the G.A. and normally only the Gothamites bothered to risk applying because they were already in the city. 

Extreme measures must be taken.

“Are you seriously flying all the way to-?” 

“Jazz, please.”

“But-”

“Jazz!” Danny whined.

“Okay! Ok!”

-.-.-.-

Living arrangements. What’s better than picking the sweet, sweet home?

“We don’t have to pick, Danny. That’s what the dorms are for.”

“Where are we putting all the Ghost Tech?”

“...In rental storage?”

“Safe rental storage? On Loony Town??”

“...”

“And with what money?”

“If we don’t have enough for rental storage, what makes you think we can afford anything else apart from the dorms? ”

“...You got me there.”

“Hmm...”

“...”

“...So. We can get back to this later, or-?”

“Yes, please.”

-.-.-.-

  
  


“Did you know that Gotham was declared ‘ _no man’s land_ ’ some years ago?”

“Our entire town got dragged to the depths of purgatory Danny.”

“Calling the realms purgatory is not exactly-”

“Pur-ga-to-ry, Danny.” 

Danny huffed. 

“Fine”

-.-.-.-

“I recognize looking up information on the richest man in Gotham might be useful, somehow, but don’t you think looking up the man’s children would be a bit stalkerish?”

“They are rich. You can’t trust rich people.”

“Danny, whatever post-traumatic stress disorder and trust issues Vlad has caused you-”

“Jazz that’s not it and you know-”

“-can be properly acknowledged if we-”

“Ok, fine! I won’t look them up!”

“Thank you.”

-.-.-.-

The number of heroes working in Loony town had been rising in the last years. Considering the amount of shit going on in the place, it was only logical. There was plenty of demand.

And there had always been Batman, which was the first one and worrying enough all on itself. himself. 

Then again they had to deal with a psychotic clown throwing parties in the middle of Loony City so maybe they would be distracted enough to notice some cold spots. Hopefully.

Either way, Danny was not going to Gotham to play the hero role. He was going to take care of his sister and help her figure out a way to deal with the ghost zone better. Because dealing with ghosts was one thing, but humans? Humans were a whole other bag of worms that, if possible, he wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole

Gotham had enough heroes running around, they could deal with their city and Danny would focus on his sister.

Easy peasy lemon squeezy. 

-.-.-.-

Human threats.

Ugh. 

He had little experience dealing with living human threats. Jazz assured him it would be similar on the core, but it was easier said than done. 

As long as the Gothamites left them alone, it would be fine.

But he would not only need to worry about the citizens, he would have to worry about the freaking threats in the asylum. He would have to make some scouting when they got there and decide on a game plan.

He really hoped Gotham wasn’t an attractive place for natural portals, because that goddamn place would be haunted to hell and back by now if the city had anywhere near the same concentration of ectoplasm Amity Park had. There were just so many, many things that had gone down in that place. 

-.-.-.-

  
  


“-And hear this, it says and I quote ‘many millenniums ago, an evil warlock was buried alive beneath what would one day become the central island of Gotham-”

“Please, stop.”

“But It’s a goddamn island Jazz, what if they blow up the bridges again-!”

“Oh, for the love of God-”

-.-.-.-

“Oh my god, I forgot about Ellie.”

“Danny-”

“How the fuck could I forget about Ellie-?!”

“Could you calm down-?”

“She is practically my goddamn daughter-!”

“Well, considering you let your barely-one-year-old ‘ _daughter_ ’ travel the world unsupervised It’s not really that surprising-”

“Jazz, you are not helping!!”

“Don’t get me wrong, I know she is quite the capable little hellion, and Vlad was the one who made her so-”

His sister had gone suddenly quiet, exchanging her —unsuccessful— attempts at calming him down for staring blankly into one of the walls of the room. Danny didn’t know what caused this reaction, and he didn’t care, as long as she kept quiet and just let him-

“D-Does that make Vlad the mom?” Jazz whispered weakly with all the air of someone who had just gotten a horrifying revelation.

Danny choked with his own tongue. 

“JAZZ!!”

-.-.-.-

  
  


So, packing. 

What really are essentials anymore, really?

“I mean the modified thermos will take care of most of our things. The only part of the packing that was worrying me was the ghost tech, and, well-”

“That’s why you asked Iris for a bag, right?”

“...”

“Danny?” 

“No. I wanted to reverse engineer it.”

“How are you even going to reverse engineer that thing? It’s like a magicky ghost bag of wonders, I can’t even-”

“That’s for you to see and for me to keel over.“

“...I really hope you know that’s not how the phrase goes.”

-.-.-.-

_Spes Ultima Dea_

_‘Hope is the last thing to die’_

That was the inscription carved on the jewelry box. Judging by the greek design it was probably Pandora’s doing, though the snowflakes mixed in with the flowers, leaves, and swirling lines carved along in the wood showed that Frostbite had contributed to the ‘packaging’ as well. At least this one didn’t have a bright green fanged skull on the lid. 

Or contain all the world’s evils. 

Jazz, who had been silently cursing him for a while now, dropped her moody mutterings when she saw him grab the box. So now they were going through the jewelry together. 

“So what’s up with the ghost jewelry then?”

“These are the replacements for Pariah’s old artifacts.“

“The what-?” Jazz made a double-take.

“I told you about this Jazz, the Observants wanted me to wear the damn things. I didn’t want to. Bla Bla Bla.” He drawled on in a bored voice.

“Yeah, but I thought you just had refused to wear them.”

“God, I wish.” Danny sighed “We had to compromise.”

“Ok. So which ones-? She asked looking over his shoulder to the wood box with golden details on his hands.

“Well, this one is from the Far Frozen, they took care of the crown.” He said, showing her a pair of silvery wrap around earrings “The letter said they called them ‘Winter’s Song’” Danny finished with a hum on his voice.

“And these ones are from the Acropolis, which got the ring” He continued, grabbing two matching silvery bracelets from the box. Jazz made grabby hands at them and Danny passed them over. “Their name is-” Danny paused, pursing his lips and reaching for the letter on the bed to read the name again. 

“-’The call of Elpis.’” He finally revealed, at Jazz’s raised eyebrow he continued. “Don’t ask me, there is nothing in here explaining and I have no idea.” 

“Course you don’t”

“Hey!” He protested, but Jazz just continued examining the silver pieces. Danny deflated and joined her on the examination. 

“Don’t know why they made them pairs, or if they are even silver but-” 

“They are beautiful.” she finished.

He hummed in agreement

“Is that a cornucopia-?” Jazz asked, bringing one of the bracelets closer to her face. 

“A what”

“It has a legend, the cornucopia was supposed to be a source of endless food and drinks-”

“Couldn’t they have sent us the original then-?”

Jazz glared

“I’m just saying-!”

“It’s a symbol of abundance, Danny.” She berated him “They are giving you their best wishes.”

Danny would have said that wishes didn’t feed him, but he was not in the mood to risk it. 

“What about the others?” Jazz asked, referring to the other pieces that were still in the jewelry box.

“I suppose you could say they are protective charms, of a sort. Those are for the both of us. Mostly for you, though. You are going to need them.”

Jazz accepted the answer, and thought to herself that she should have seen something like this coming from Danny, he had been worried about her since she shared her college plans after all. 

What she wasn’t quite accepting was the lack of explanation on the names of her brother’s last new piece of jewelry. 

She grabbed her phone from the nightstand and started browsing for answers.

The name just had to have some sort of meaning-

Oh

She looked up from her phone to send a long look at her brother, whose tongue was poking out of the corner of his mouth while fighting with the clasp of one of the bracelets. She smiled fondly.

_Pandora's hope, uh?_

-.-.-.-

“Do you think Batman is a Vampire, tho?”

Jazz rolled her eyes. _Aaaand he ruined it._

“Do I look like I care?”

-.-.-.-

  
  


Danny was seated on his desk chair, glaring fiercely into the void.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm trying to glare the nether gods into striking me down."

"Danny." Jazz sighed from her place on his bed. Hearing her brother say that was- This was unbelievable. "I'm not finishing all the work alone."

“I know. It's just-” He halted mid-sentence to purse his lips. A slight air of defeat entering his already slouched posture.

“Just what?”

"We could have used clockwork's help" The redhead raised an eyebrow at the response. 

"Could we? I mean normally it takes a Long Time to just find his tower. And that's because it's _you_ searching for it. No one would find him otherwise. Except for the Observants, they can do it faster, but I don’t think you are desperate enough. Would it be worth it though-?

"No. Not like that." Danny interrupted her, not breaking his glare but voice in a complete deadpan. "We completely forgot about his gift."

His sister blinked a pair of times. Considering. And then her eyes got progressively bigger as she connected the dots. 

"The time medallions" She gasped in realization. 

_Clockwork's time medallions._

The **_pair_ ** _of time medallions_ he had gifted to her brother on his last deathday. 

The ones that clockwork had refused to say _what they were for_ but had probably been gifted to Danny with this exact purpose in mind.

Jazz groaned, facepalming and letting herself fall onto the bed to curl into a ball of red hair and utter defeat. 

Danny, who hadn't moved an inch since the beginning of the conversation just groaned back in sympathy.

She rolled over onto her back and started to glare into the void too.

"I feel like ClockWork is laughing his ass off right now."

-.-.-.-

He was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Why would asexual aliens be the best option to be The FBI man?? 'Cause they are not interested in your dirty. Just the juicy, juicy human gossip.  
> -.-.-.- 
> 
> Ellie is coming, people. Everything will be fine.
> 
> -.-.-.-
> 
> I already wrote part of the Batfam, the Fenton siblings, and Vlad's meeting plus some extra guests. 
> 
> As in, that’s not their first time meeting because they had already met individually(I haven’t written all) before that scene.
> 
> BUT this one is with EVERYONE there. The first time all of them are in the SAME place, at the SAME time. and I’M JUST- laughing my ass off? This is going to be chaotic. 
> 
> Angst who? Not this time Satan. 
> 
> -.-.-.-
> 
> So Elpis for the greek and to pass a fast one by oblivious Danny, and then when I searched "Call of hope" for the giggles google said it was a Christian organization and I was like: Brah 
> 
> The other one is "Winter's Song". I wonder WHY
> 
> Hope and Winter, I like the sound of that. Can beat the shit out of rage and fire any day.
> 
> I will describe them both in detail later because it just seemed awkward to put such a meticulous examination when Danny just grabbed the things to put them on so he wouldn’t lose them or something. Which he can’t. But that’s for later.
> 
> Also, I got bored.
> 
> -.-.-.-
> 
> Clockwork is just vibing on his tower by this point.
> 
> The Timelord deserves some fruity cocktails and some Hawaiian leis for dealing with the Bald-Voldemort's-cousins-eye-heads.
> 
> And I'm giving them to him. 
> 
> Can you see him watching the siblings scrambling all over the place?? All flowered up??? Laughing at these silly children?? and taking little sips of his Fruity Vodka Party Punch??? 
> 
> I can. It's quite a sight.
> 
> -.-.-.-
> 
> In the Latin American DC fandom, they call Damian ‘Bolita de Odio’ which translates to ‘tiny ball of hate’ but it sounds so cute on Spanish ‘bolita’ adhfkfhkadsljfladsk I love it when they call him that, it makes me squeal. 
> 
> You can literally search on google: ‘bolita de odio’. And you will get Damian. This is so fuckin’ ridiculous and I love it. 
> 
> Same with Jason but they call him: 'Palancas locas' which is 'crazy crowbars' because of- you know, how he died. 
> 
> -.-.-.-  
> If nothing goes wrong, they will be arriving to Gotham City in the next chapter.
> 
> Fucking finally.
> 
> -.-.-.-
> 
> Guess what, something went wrong.
> 
> -.-.-.-
> 
> If you are interested. A list of almost confirmed main & background ships for this fic. Just in case it's a deal-breaker? :L
> 
> Jazz/Jason [JJ Elizabeth for the win]
> 
> Kitty/Ember [Queens]
> 
> Harley/Ivy [The Ultimate Queens] (Ember would murder me for this if she found a way to break the fourth wall, *chuckles* ‘I’m in danger.jpg’)
> 
> Cass/Kicking ass [Edit: got an Idea now! :D But: Spoilers so hush-hush]
> 
> Bruce/Selina [Not leaving their lives for the other? what? Who is leaving a part of themselves behind? no one, that’s who. Don’t worry pals, Alfred and the fam got this.]
> 
> Dick/Kori [There was a moment there when I thought about Babs/Dick BUT the sibling feels overcame me. One of my favorite ships, when I was a small little bean, were these two in Teen titans (2003) so we are going with 2003 Starfire for this :3 (But, I suppose if you like the other design better you have the right to visualize her like that. Whatever makes you happy *kissy face*)
> 
> SO we are going with Babs and Dick as best friends, and Babs teasing the shit out of Dick because Batman never taught him how to deal with girls and those first years with Starfire were a shitshow. I’m going to pretend they NEVER had anything sneaky going on for the fic’s sake and what I want to pull off here.]
> 
> Tim/Coffee pot [I don’t know about Tim, yet. Give me ideas or I Will be shipping him with the coffee pot.) edit: you know what- no. I thought about something better. Never mind this-]
> 
> Danny/Coffee pot [Just kidding, you know it’s Damian :) :) :) *Twodudessittinginahottube*]
> 
> There are other ships. BUT I’m not sure if I’m going platonic or romantic with some of them- also, I don’t want to tag those yet because where would be the surprises? the drama? the out of nowhere feels?? where? so, yeah. 
> 
> (I’m also thinking about shipping Vlad with a Certain Someone. The man deserves to move on. (In this fic in particular. I mean THIS fic. He can stay in space in Canon))
> 
> You have been warned.  
> -.-.-.-
> 
> Have you seen Dick’s & Kori’s little girl??? My fucking heart can’t take this.


	8. The Council Can — And Will — Decide Your Fate (after they take a break)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ghost council random shenanigans

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My dudes, my gals, my chums.   
> I hope u are all right.
> 
> Because my cat lost half of one of his toe beans, and I got sick two times in a row and the last months sucked. I was also really sad for a while there, but I'm not sure if that counts as an episode or it was just my damn hormones.
> 
> Also, this chapter didn't help at all and I hate it. But it is necessary for the future. So we must all endure. I did try my best until I gave up so there is something. 
> 
> I must admit I got some writing done but it was for the other fics and at random.
> 
> My brain also thought it would be funny if Wes got kidnapped by wizards and Danny had to go bail his ass out, and then some days later I was writing about plotting riots in Hogwarts while Danny laughed like a maniac in the background and Draco and Harry catfight it out. Hiss-hiss motherfuckwr and everything.
> 
> I love Neville. He is baby.
> 
> Wes is washing his hands off this. Even if it's kind of his fault Danny is there. 
> 
> Bloody Americans. 
> 
> So, that happened. 
> 
> Not sure if that one is going far, but it has been fun until now.
> 
> Anyway, onto the fic!
> 
> This under other circumstances would be a royal mess of languages and a headache to think about logistics. But I won’t bother because there is a language of the dead for a reason.
> 
> Ghost-speak? How was it called? Whatever. Just know they are using it and It’s getting conveniently translated to english for us. Can you imagine trying to diplomat and not even understanding each other? *disaster's in the air~*
> 
> 537 739

Iris had always loved her job.

While she had started as a simple messenger, the reach of her network had steadily increased over the years and ended up making her the best option when it came to shipping stuff all over the place.

Her love for humans had also made her expand onto earth, but at the beginning, it had been nothing more than self-indulgence, because even if the number of ghosts from earth who refused to completely let go of the human world was incredibly high, she tended to make her contracts with kingdoms or even large conglomerations of ghosts and not with individuals. 

She had been meditating over whether making an exception this time would be a good idea when Phantom had entered the picture.

The teen, even if he refused to believe her whenever she brought it up, had been great for business.

Because the boy had caught the attention of the entire Zone  _ and kept it _ . 

He was the second halfa in less than twenty years after not having one in millennia. From the same planet, even, but this one acted nothing like the first one. 

And yes, Phantom hunted them down, but it was mostly because they caused havoc in what was practically his lair, and even then, no matter how much they wrecked he would put them back on the zone. 

Back in their home. 

A stark difference from the other halfa — who treated them more like stepping stones — or any other hunter a ghost had encountered before. Phantom, unlike any other, saw them as equals. As beings capable of feeling.

Not like monsters. 

Some would even say he treated them almost like _ they  _ were the unruly children waiting to be chastised. It was funny to watch how ruffled the kid would get when dealing with some of them, and it was safe to do so. He could be pretty nice sometimes. 

When nobody was throwing punches around, that is. 

Even if he was a halfa and hence still somewhat part of the living, the little Phantom started to mean protection and stability for some of them, no matter to who they were affiliated. Which was something no one in the zone had been privy to since Pariah Dark had wreaked havoc on The Realms. 

There had been kingdoms, cities, congregations, and more, yes, — most of the beings inhabiting the zone where creatures of companionship and even death couldn't change that. — but even then, when push came to shove, it was every ghost by themselves.

Phantom didn't seem to believe in that ideology.

And when the other ghosts had finally realized this, it had unleashed the beginning of a change in the zone.

Because if you asked for help there would be someone there to help.

Because Phantom had made the word allies actually mean something in a world full of anarchy.

Because if he promised something he backed it up and didn't back down.

Even if he had to shake awake and mobilize the totality of the Kings and Queens of the zone to do it.

That had left many shook to the core, and started to convince the ones still unsure that maybe having a High King again wouldn't be a bad idea after all. The teen kept denying left and right that he was not king material and he had still managed to amass quite the following without even trying

The zone itself seemed to be resonating with a new feeling.

It was refreshing.

With this came a wave of interest for the little halfa’s liar, for earth, and Iris had been all over it. 

She also had to admit that being able to put the fear of the ancient’s into Walker had also helped her business thrive™. Not only because it allowed her to run her network unbothered, but because it had been the first push that would inevitably lead her to get in the new high-crown prince’s good graces, 

The royal teenage boy didn’t seem to think it was a big deal, but when you ‘lived’ in a place who had been stagnant for millennia after Pariah Dark’s reign, dropping the name of the guy that had drop-kicked the ever-loving guts out of the ex-king all the way back into his sarcophagus was a real plus.

Also, Phantom was fun to work with, but that was just a plus.

They had schemed some things together. In fact, the last one was still in process.

She thought about the side objectives she had added to the plan of action at the last minute and couldn’t help but bite her lower lip and giggle to herself. And if she accidentally scared some of the little ghosts with the sudden sound while she passed through that was nobody's business but hers.

Ancients, She  _ really  _ loved her job. 

-.-.-.-

  
  


“Oh, thank the ancients.” The Ghost Writer exhaled under his breath upon spotting her entering the hall “Tell me you have them.” he begged, making Iris smile upon hearing the palpable desperation in his voice. She had just made the motion to pass the package over when the other ghost snatched it out of her hands. 

“It looks like you had fun.” she chuckled while watching him tear the package for its contents, the only response she got back was unintelligible grumbles vaguely directed in her direction. Then, after securing the contents and releasing a shout of victory the writer finally turned part of his attention back to her only to frown and start complaining. 

“I hate this job and everything it stands for.”

“And here I thought you liked writing”

“I do,” he grumbled, clutching his precious cargo against his chest like someone would try to take it away, “But my usual cup of coffee does not usually involve politics” He ended with a sneer directed to the rest of the chamber. She didn’t think it was directed to anyone in particular, but it sure felt personal. 

She resisted the urge to poke fun at him, if just to keep him talking, and ended up releasing an inquisitive hum that just served to lead into the start of the questions.

“So, how much more until this is done?” 

“Sadly, this is just a recess.” The Ghost Writer grumbled, “Why do I need to be here, again?” he asked, starting his way — with Iris as a tag-along —to the back of the room where they kept the coffee maker and the occasional pastry. 

“I’m the one supplying you coffee and you owe me~” was the reminder he got from her. It would have soured his mood further, but he couldn’t quite manage to get fully annoyed when coffee was involved. So he decided to stick to his normal amounts of irked grumbling until he could get his hands on the coffee machine. 

Iris, on the other hand, was really enjoying hearing him complain. He liked to act all-knowing but he could be such a child sometimes. 

She was about to continue the conversation when the sound of someone sighing stole her attention from the writer. She couldn’t help overhearing. When you were in a room full of royalty you never knew what gossip you could stumble upon. 

“Your obsession with human things is ridiculous-!” was the angry response from an old-looking man to the previous sigh, that had apparently come from a much younger ghost seated — floating — across the table. One of the many — and frankly gigantic — round tables scattered around the recess room. 

"I didn't know Walker was on the council-" the younger snarked back. 

“What did you say-?!”

Iris chuckled, “they are a fun bunch.” Her chuckles just increased when she turned to GW, he looked so fucking done.

“They have been at it the whole fucking morning” he drawled, not bothering to acknowledge the irritating voices with a look and still searching around for his objective “Lords, where is that machine,” he added in a grumble under his breath. 

“They just need to meet each other properly” Iris offered with a cheery smile that was promptly replaced with a thoughtful frown. “You would think they would find another table if the current company is not to their taste, though. It’s not like the place is lacking.”

“Masochists, the lot of them,” GW said, increasing his pace. “It’s like a requirement if you are in charge of someone. The bigger the numbers, the worse is the case. Just look at Phantom. The brat is a mess.” 

Iris just winced slightly and hummed her reluctant agreement, following him but still looking around the room. 

High Council meetings were still a new thing, after all. 

Never hurt someone to keep an ear up.

So she ended up within hearing range of conversations like-

-.-.-.-

This.

“How do you even make this piece of trash work-” 

“We could always wait for the Coluan to get here,” was the tired response he got. “Or we could have gotten Technus to explain you know.”

“Ha! As if I'm letting that techno freak anywhere near our new toys.” the man stated, finally giving up on the ‘hit-it-till-you-make-it’ approach and turning to look around for alternatives that were not related to that annoying techno ghost or waiting for who knows how long. 

After a pair of once overs to the nearby tables, his eyes finally caught into someone. 

“Hey, alien girl! Your planet was supposed to be more advanced than ours when you died, yes? Please come and make this thing make sense-”

The alien ghost raised an eyebrow in response as she started her way calmly in their direction.

“Advanced, yes. Anything resembling Human Tech? I doubt.”

“I come from the darkness age of my planet, woman. You can’t possibly do worse. I don’t know what you want from me-”

-.-.-.-

And this-

  
  


“Can we focus?” someone begged a pair of tables later. 

"Please, honey. As if any of us came here to work." The woman two seats over snarked. She had been taking care of her nails and didn’t even bother to look in the dude’s direction until she felt the familiar weight of an intent stare bore into her. She finally looked up to look into the exasperated eyes of her wife. "what? It’s true, technically." she defended. The other woman just rolled her eye and sighed. 

“Please, excuse my wife.” she apologized, and continued before the other had a chance to talk “But, we are in recess right now, so no, we can’t ‘focus’, honey.” she ended with a sweet — and most likely fake — smile.

-.-.-.-

Also- 

“They are being a goddamn pest.” someone murmured. Whether they were talking about their people or the fellow ghosts currently occupying the room was yet to be seen.

“When haven’t they been a goddamn pest, though?” responded their companion. 

“That is fair.”

-.-.-.-

And this one- 

“So. Are we getting Phantom to step up his game or-?” Someone chimed in from the other side of the room.

“I don’t see why we should bother.” was the barely understandable response because their yawn almost swallowed the words. The ghost shook themselves a little into proper awareness before continuing, “I mean, Phantom technically isn’t actively working and he is still doing a better job than the Observants at keeping this place running.”

“Excuse you? We were,  _ and still are, _ a primordial part of-!” 

There were rolled eyes all over the place. In some cases, their body language did the ‘talking’, because some of their eyes were a single solid color all over. Even then, the I’m-rolling-my-eyes-at-your-stupidity’ motion was still noticeable.

They rolled them that hard. 

Because  _ for the ancient’s sake, who had invited the eyeballs? _

“Do we really need to list all your fuck offs? Because I will start. Gladly so”

“Do you want it in alphabetical or chronological order?” another one continued. “Either way it will span thousands of years, so it’s not like it matters.”

-.-.-.-

And -

“Are those things really going to work?”

“Clockwork is the one providing the signal, so I would say.”

“Why do even need to watch this”

“I don't think it is a matter of need. It’s more of a debriefing on our alive counterparts”

“Oh”

“I mean, a good bunch of newbies will join us in the future, and until now most of us have been receiving them blindly without any idea of all the tomfoolery that is going on in their end-”

“Oh lords, don’t remind me of them. Do you have any idea how many of my people get here expecting to meet with our gods?” There were many grunts in agreement after that declaration. “At least yours are atheists, how am I supposed to explain that even in the afterlife there is still no sign of them? this is not what the sacred scriptures promised-” 

“Personally, I don’t know about you and can’t even begin to think of speaking on your behalf,” another piped in, “but I would love to see how much my offspring fucked up since I died.”

“Oh the ancients, yes.” someone hissed. Literally- hiss hiss. “The brat they had lined up for when I stepped down was a disaster waiting to happen.”

“I don’t think my planet will be standing very well off...” a woman winced. 

“At least you’ll still have a planet to check on” someone grumbled, “fucking Galactus.” 

“Oh, are we going to start trashing planet-destroying-assholes?” chimed in the Kryptonian representative with an entirely fake cheery voice, “please, let me direct your attention-”

The slimy-octopus-like-alien seating at their side just sighed and rubbed their um- temple “This isn’t why I joined this council” 

“Ha! I will take it-”

-.-.-.-

And those were just the ones in earshot. 

She was sure there was a lot more going on, just thinking of what more they could be saying on the other tables made her salivate. Her hands were twitching with the need to reach into her bag for her recorder. 

But alas, she would get on that later, for now- 

“Why do you even drink that thing?” she turned around, curious about the massive intake of caffeine the man could take. Ghostwriter just kept his sights on the coffee machine “We are dead, is not like we need it.”

“Because is as bitter as my core”

-.-.-.-

Pandora had noticed it a while ago but had not felt like saying anything. If the others couldn’t realize or wouldn’t complain -whichever it was- she was not going to even bother. 

If there ever was a problem it would be Phantom’s, because the brat was using the members of the high council as glorified babysitters for his town and making it look like it was in their best interest.

The fucking nerve.

She was so proud.

“They are having fun down there.” she offered. 

“So it seems”

“There are still many representatives that are not present.”

“Everything needs to start somewhere.” Clockwork moving along until he took a place by her side.

Pandora hummed in acknowledgment and continued to watch over the chamber from her spot in one of the balconies. “It's been millennia since more than two of the Kings and Queens reunited in a single place without a war in the middle to take care of, and even back then it was never to this scale. This is unheard of” 

“Daniel seems to be a blessing upon the Realm’s diplomatic relations.”

Pandora cackled. There was no stopping it. 

“Little Elpis would laugh himself fully dead if he heard you say that!”

Clockwork just gave a slow smile. 

“Indeed he would”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is it.
> 
> This is why you had to wait for another chapter for Gotham. I don’t even know dude, It Just Happened. Don’t judge me. I’m already judging me.
> 
> -.-.-.-
> 
> I have never put so much thought into my daydreaming. This is all ur fault, people, hope u are happy. 
> 
> -.-.-.-  
> Yes, I am fully aware Gallactus is from Marvel   
> :) isn’t :) this :) fun :) ? :)
> 
> -.-.-.-  
> Ghost parents for the win.  
> -.-.-.-
> 
> The council: *deciding laws for the new administration of the ghost zone*
> 
> Walker outside the council's chambers: *Let me in. LET ME IIIIIIIIIIIIIN!!!*
> 
> -.-.-.-
> 
> WARNING: The next kilometer of text is going to be me fangirling about Danny’s Latin American voice actor.
> 
> I rewatched the boxed up fury episode and some other to have a refresher, but I watched the Latin American dub for some, the one I actually grew up watching but have not seen in a while because now all the parts of the show I find on Tumblr are in English, (I also found a post with a link to a folder on google drive with the DP episodes in English.) 
> 
> https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B76UL-XD94xRY1BTTUp6OFNWZ2c?usp=sharing
> 
> and I must say I forgot how much I can simp for Danny’s Latin American voice actor. Not gonna lie to you, that man made me crush double hard on this boy when I was in elementary/middle school, his voice can fucking sent me. 
> 
> But maybe that’s just me projecting my childhood crush on a damn cartoon. Who knows. 
> 
> He [Ezequiel Serrano, who is venezuelan] did the voices of Danny & Dan.
> 
> And he is also, apparently, Robin aka Dick Grayson on the Teen Titans (2003). My two biggest crushes had a link joining them after all. It was this man. Bless. He also did beast boy’s voice. I never noticed!
> 
> He also sang bob sponge’s ‘I’m a goofy goober’. The theme song to 6teen you say?
> 
> But most importantly: He is one of the two persons that sing the Danny Phantom theme song. Do you want to know who sang with him? Luis Miguel Pérez, Skulker’s Voice actor.
> 
> Which meaNs SKULKER AND DANNY SANG THE FREAKING THEME SONG FOR LATINO AMERICA TOGETHER I’M SCREAMING
> 
> -.-.-.-
> 
> I love how in the frightmare episode Danny says ‘princess’ and immediately thinks of his sister. I love it.
> 
> -.-.-.-
> 
> Is it weird that the Fentons have cameras all over their fucking house? Just asking,  
> Even the refrigerator. Is that one to keep an eye on the possible contaminated food? Is it to prevent another turkey incident? Or was Jack stealing all the damn fudge to himself ?? 
> 
> I don't need sleep I need answers.
> 
> -.-.-.-
> 
> Do you know what I like the most about POVs? That u never know if you can fully trust them. 
> 
> -.-.-.-  
> Also, the desire of writing 'hiss-hiss motherfucker' in this fic was too strong.  
> -.-.-.-
> 
> I re-read what I have written until now and I must accept this chapter has another little plot point that will be touched later. Can't belieeve I forgot about it, lol.
> 
> -.-.-.-.-
> 
> Please send good vibes.
> 
> I don't like to be sad :p
> 
> -.-.-.-  
> I will come back and edit this some more later. 
> 
> -.-.-.-
> 
> Mayhaps
> 
> -.-.-.-
> 
> I will go have a donut now. Bu-bye

**Author's Note:**

> If u notice weird grammar or something pls tell me because I'm rolling with the punches,  
> yes & thank u


End file.
